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RAVISHED ARMENIA 





THE LONG LINE THAT SWIFTLY GREW SHORTER 



One of the most striking photographs of the deportations that have 
come out of Armenia. Here is shown a column of Christians on the 
path across the great plains of the Mamuret-ul-Aziz. The zaptieths 
are shown walking along at one side. 



RAVISHED ARMENIA 

THE STORY OF 

AURORA MARDIGANIAN 

THE CHRISTIAN GIRL WHO LIVED THROUGH 
THE GREAT MASSACRES 

INTERPRETED BY H. L. GATES 



WITH A FOREWORD BY 

NORA WALN 



AND FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 






NEW YORi:~ 
KINGFIELD PRESS, IKC. 






Copyright, 1918, by 

Kingfield Press, Inc. 

New York 



JA^- ; 4 i9!9 



©CI.A511224 



*VV4? \ 



MY DEDICATION 

'7TO each mother and father, in this beautiful land 
^ of the United States, who has taught a daughter 
to believe in God, I dedicate my book. I saw my own 
mother's body, its life ebbed out, flung onto the desert 
because she had taught me that Jesus Christ was my 
Saviour. I saw my father die in pain because he said 
to me, his little girl, " Trust in the Lord ; His will be 
done." I saw thousands upon thousands of beloved 
daughters of gentle mothers die under the whip, or 
the knife, or from the torture of hunger and thirst, 
or carried away into slavery because they would not 
renounce the glorious crown of their Christianity. 
God saved me that I might bring to America a mes- 
sage from those of my people who are left, and every 
father and mother will understand that what I tell in 
these pages is told with love and thankfulness to Him 
for my escape. 

Aurora Mardiganian. 
The Latham, 

New York City, 

December, 19 18. 



THIS STORY OF 
AURORA MARDIGANIAN 

which is the most amazing narrative ever written 
has been reproduced 

for the American Committee for 
Armenian and Syrian Relief in a 

TREMENDOUS MOTION PICTURE 
SPECTACLE 

"RAVISHED ARMENIA" 

Through which runs the thrilling yet 
tender romance of this 

CHRISTIAN GIRL WHO SURVIVED 
THE GREAT MASSACRES 

Undoubtedly it is one of the greatest and most 
elaborate motion pictures of the age — every stirring 
scene through which Aurora lives in the book, is 
lived again on the motion picture screen. 

SEE AURORA, HERSELF, IN HER STORY 

Scenario by Nora Wain — Staged by Oscar Apf el 

Produced by Selig Enterprises 

Presented in a selected list of cities 

By the 

American Committee for 
ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF 



CONTENTS 

chapter page 

Acknowledgment 9 

Foreword 11 

Arshalus — The Light of the Morning . 19 

I When the Pasha Came to My House . . 29 

II The Days of Terror Begin 47 

III Vahby Bey Takes His Choice .... 64 

IV The Cruel Smile of Kemal Effendi ... 80 

V The Ways of the Zaptiehs 99 

VI Recruiting for the Harems of Constanti- 
nople 116 

VII Malatia — The City of Death .... 132 

VIII In the Harem of Hadji Ghafour . . , 145 

IX The Raid on the Monastery 158 

X The Game of the Swords, and Diyarbekir . 174 

XI " Ishim Yok; Keifim Tchok ! " .... 191 

XII Reunion — and Then, the Sheikh Zilan . 208 

XIII Old Vartabed and the Shepherd's Call . 223 

XIV The Message of General Andranik . . . 239 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Long Line that Swiftly Grew Shorter . Frontispiece 
Map Showing Aurora's Wanderings . . . Page 75 
Waiting They Know Not What . . . Facing Page 158 
Driven Forth on the Road of Terror . " " 192 

The Roadside of Awful Despair " " 234 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

For verification of these amazing things, which little 
Aurora told me that I might tell them, in our own 
language, to all the world, I am indebted to Lord 
Bryce, formerly British Ambassador to the United 
States, who was commissioned by the British Govern- 
ment to investigate the massacres; to Dr. Clarence 
Ussher, of whom Aurora speaks in her story, and 
who witnessed the massacres at Van ; and to Dr. Mac- 
Callum, who rescued Aurora at Erzerum and made 
possible her coming to America. You may read 
Aurora's story with entire confidence — every word 
is true. As the story of what happened to one Chris- 
tian girl, it is a proven document. 

H. L. Gates. 



FOREWORD 

She stood beside me — a slight little girl with glossy 
black hair. Until I spoke to her and she lifted her 
eyes in which were written the indelible story of her 
suffering, I could not believe that she was Aurora 
Mardiganian whom I had been expecting. She could 
not speak English, but in Armenian she spoke a few 
words of greeting. 

It was our first meeting and in the spring of last 
year. Several weeks earlier a letter had come to me 
telling me about this little Armenian girl who was 
to be expected, asking me to help her upon her ar- 
rival. The year before an Armenian boy had come 
from our relief station in the Caucasus and kind 
friends had made it possible to send him to boarding 
school. I had formed a similar plan to send Aurora 
to the same school when she should arrive. 

We talked about education that afternoon, through 
her interpreter, but she shook her head sadly. She 
would like to go to school, and study music as her 
father had planned she should before the massacres, 
but now she had a message to deliver — a message 

ii 



12 FOREWORD 

from her suffering nation to the mothers and fathers 
of the United States. The determination in the child's 
eyes made me ask her her age and she answered 
" Seventeen." 

Tired, and worn out nervously, as she was, Aurora 
insisted upon telling us of the scenes she had left be- 
hind her — massacres, families driven out across the 
desert, girls sold into Turkish harems, women rav- 
ished by the roadside, little children dying of starva- 
tion. She begged us to help her to help her people. 
" My father said America was the friend of the op- 
pressed. General Andranik sent me here because he 
trusted you to help me," she pleaded. 

And so her story was translated. Sometimes there 
had to be intervals of rest of several days, because her 
suffering had so unnerved her. She wanted to keep at 
it during all the heat of the summer, but by using the 
argument that she would learn English, we persuaded 
her to go to a camp off the coast of Connecticut for 
three weeks. 

You who read the story of Aurora Mardiganian's 
last three years, will find it hard to believe that in our 
day and generation such things are possible. Your 
emotions will doubtless be similar to mine when I first 
heard of the suffering of her people. I remember 
very distinctly my feelings, when, early in October of 
19 1 7, I attended a luncheon given by the Executive 
Committee of the American Committee for Armenian 



FOREWORD 13 

and Syrian Relief, to a group of seventeen American 
Consuls and missionaries who had just returned from 
Turkey after witnessing two years of massacre and 
deportation. I listened to persons, the truthfulness 
of whose statements I could not doubt, tell how a 
church had been rilled with Christian Armenians, 
women and children, saturated with oil and set on fire, 
of refined, educated girls, from homes as good as yours 
or mine, sold in the slave markets of the East, of little 
children starving to death, and then to the plea for 
help for the pitiful survivors who have been gathered 
into temporary relief stations. 

I listened almost unable to believe and yet as I 
looked around the luncheon table there were familiar 
faces, the faces of men and women whose word I 
could not doubt — Dr. James L. Barton, Chairman of 
the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian 
Relief, Ambassadors Morgenthau and Elkus, who 
spoke from personal knowledge, Cleveland H. Dodge, 
whose daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Huntington is in Con- 
stantinople, and whose son is in Beirut, both helping 
with relief work, Miss Lucille Foreman of German- 
town, C. V. Vickrey, Executive Secretary of the Amer- 
ican Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, Dr. 
Samuel T. Dutton of the World Court League, George 
T. Scott, Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, and 
others. 

And you who read this story as interpreted will find 



14 FOREWORD 

it even harder to believe than I did, because you will 
not have the personal verification of the men and 
women who can speak with authority that I had at 
that luncheon. Since then it has happened that nearly 
every communication from the East — Persia, Rus- 
sian Caucasus and the Ottoman Empire, has passed 
through my hands and I know that conditions have 
not been exaggerated in this book. In this introduc- 
tion I want to refer you to Lord Bryce's report, to 
Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, to the recent 
speeches of Lord Cecil before the British Parliament, 
and the files of our own State Department, and you 
will learn that stories similar to this one can be told 
by any one of the 3,950,000 refugees, the number 
now estimated to be destitute in the Near East. 

This is a human living document. Miss Mardiga- 
nian's names, dates and places, do not correspond 
exactly with similar references to these places made 
by Ambassador Morgenthau, Lord Bryce and others, 
but we must take into consideration that she is only 
a girl of seventeen, that she has lived through one of 
the most tragic periods of history in that section of 
the world which has suffered most from the war, 
that she is not a historian, that her interpreter in giv- 
ing this story to the American public has not attempted 
to write a history. He has simply aimed to give her 
message to the American people that they may under- 
stand something of the situation in the Near East 



FOREWORD 15 

during the past years, and help to establish there for 
the future, a sane and stable government. 

Speaking of the character of the Armenians, Am- 
bassador Morgenthau says in a recent article published 
in the New York Evening Sun: " From the times of 
Herodotus this portion of Asia has borne the name of 
Armenia. The Armenians of the present day are the 
direct descendants of the people who inhabited the 
country 3,000 years ago. Their origin is so ancient 
that it is lost in fable and mystery. There are still un- 
deciphered cuneiform inscriptions on the rocky hills of 
Van, the largest Armenian city, that have led certain 
scholars — though not many, I must admit — to iden- 
tify the Armenian race with the Hittites of the Bible. 
What is definitely known about the Armenians, how- 
ever, is that for ages they have constituted the most 
civilized and most industrious race in the Eastern sec- 
tion of the Ottoman Empire. From their mountains 
they have spread over the Sultan's dominions, and form 
a considerable element in the population of all the 
large cities. Everywhere they are known for their in- 
dustry, their intelligence and their decent and orderly 
lives. They are so superior to the Turks intellectually 
and morally that much of the business and industry 
has passed into their hands. With the Greeks, the 
Armenians constituted the economic strength of the 
Empire. These people became Christians in the fourth 
century and established the Armenian Church as their 



1 6 FOREWORD 

state religion. This is said to be the oldest Christian 
Church in existence. 

"In face of persecutions which have had no parallel 
elsewhere, these people have clung to their early Chris- 
tian faith with the utmost tenacity. For 1,500 years 
they have lived there in Armenia, a little island of 
Christians, surrounded by backward peoples of hos- 
tile religion and hostile race. Their long existence 
has been one unending martyrdom. The territory 
which they inhabit forms the connecting link between 
Europe and Asia, and all the Asiatic invasions — 
Saracens, Tartars, Mongols, Kurds and Turks — have 
passed over their peaceful country." 

Aurora Mardiganian has come to America to tell the 
story of her suffering peoples and to do her part in 
making it possible for her country to be rebuilt. She 
is only a little girl, but in giving her story to the Amer- 
ican people through the daily newspapers, in this book, 
and the motion picture which is being prepared for 
that purpose by the American Committee for Armenian 
and Syrian Relief, she is, I feel, playing one of the 
greatest parts in helping to reestablish again " peace on 
earth, good will to men " in ancient Bible Lands, the 
home in her generation of her people. Her mother, 
her father, her brothers and sisters are gone, but ac- 
cording to the most careful estimates, 3,950,000 desti- 
tute peoples, mostly women and children who had been 
driven many of them as far as one thousand miles 



FOREWORD 17 

from home, turn their pitiful faces toward America 
for help in the reconstructive period in which we are 
now living. 

Dr. James L. Barton, who is leaving this month 
with a commission of two hundred men and women 
for the purpose of helping to rehabilitate these lands 
from which Aurora came, is a part of the answer to 
the call for help from these destitute people. The 
American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 
Campaign for $30,000,000, in which it is hoped all of 
the people of America will participate, is another part 
of the answer. 

You who read this book can play a part also in help- 
ing Aurora to deliver her message, by passing it on 
to some one else when you have finished with it. 

December 2, 19 18 Nora Waln, 

One Madison Ave., Publicity Secretary, 

New York , American Committee for 

Armenian and Syrian Relief. 



ARSHALUS — THE LIGHT OF THE 
MORNING 

A Prologue to the Story 

Old Vartabed, the shepherd whose flocks had 
clothed three generations, stood silhouetted against the 
skies on the summit of a Taurus hill. His figure was 
motionless, erect and very tall. The signs of age were 
in every crease of his grave, strong face, yet his hands 
folded loosely on his stick, for he would have scorned 
to lean upon it. 

To the east and north spread the plains of the 
Mamuret-ul-Aziz, with here and there a plateau reach- 
ing out from a nest of foothills. Each Spring, through 
twenty-five centuries, other shepherds than Old Var- 
tabed had stood on this same hilltop to watch the 
plains and plateaux of the Mamuret-ul-Aziz turn 
green, but few had seen the grass and shrubs sprout 
so early as they had this year. Old Vartabed should 
have been greatly pleased at such promise of a good 
season, and should have spoken to his sheep about it — 
for that was his way. 

But the shepherd was troubled. A strange fore- 
boding had come to him in the night. Even at day- 
break he could not shake it off. He was gazing now, 

19 



20 PROLOGUE 

not at the stretches of welcome green which soon 
would soothe the bleating of his sheep, but across 
into the north beyond, where the blue line of the 
Euphrates was lost in the haze of dawn. What his 
old eyes sought there, he did not know ; but something 
seemed to threaten from up there in the north. 

Suddenly the lazy, droning call to the Third Prayer, 
with which the devout Mohammedan greets the light 
of day, floated up from the valley at Old Vartabed's 
feet. It brought the shepherd out of his reverie ab- 
ruptly. " There, that was it ! That was the sign. 
The danger might come from the north, but it would 
show itself first, whatever it was to be, in the 
city." 

The shepherd looked down into the valley, onto the 
housetops and the narrow, winding streets that sepa- 
rated them. He caught the glint of the minaret as 
the muezzin again intoned his summons. Quickly his 
eyes leaped across the city to where the first glimpse 
of sunshine played about a crumbled pile of brown 
and gray — the ruins of the castle of Tchemesh, an 
ancient Armenian king. A piteous sadness gathered 
in his face. The minaret still stood; the castle of the 
king was fallen. That was why there were two sets 
of prayers in the city, and why trouble was coming 
out of the north. 

The old man planted his stick upright in the ground 
as a sign to his sheep that where the stick stood their 



PROLOGUE 21 

shepherd was bound to return. Then he picked his 
way down the path that led to the lower slopes where 
the houses of the city began. With a firm, even step 
that belied his many years, he strode through the city 
until he came to the streets marked by the imposing 
homes of the rich. A short turn along the side" of the 
park that served as a public square brought him to the 
home of the banker, Mardiganian. In this house Old 
Vartabed was always welcome. He had been the 
keeper of herds belonging to three succeeding heads of 
the Mardiganian families. 

A servant woman opened the door in the street wall 
and admitted the shepherd to the inner garden. When 
she had closed the door again, the visitor asked : 

" Is the Master still within the house, or has he 
gone this early to his business ? " 

" Shame upon you for the asking ! " the woman re- 
plied, with a servant's quick uncivility to her kind. 
" Have you forgotten what day it is, that you should 
think the Master would be at business ? " 

Amazement showed in the old man's eyes. The 
woman saw that he had, indeed, forgotten. She spoke 
more kindly: 

" Do you not know, Vartabed, that this is Easter 
Sunday morning? " 

The old man accepted the reminder, but his dignity 
quickly reasserted itself. " If you live as many days 
as Old Vartabed you will wish to forget more than 



22 PROLOGUE 

one of them — perhaps one that is coming soon more 
than any other." 

The woman had no patience for the sententiousness 
of age, and the veiled threat of coming ill she put 
down for petulance. But her sharp reply fell upon 
unheeding ears. The shepherd crossed the garden 
without further parleys and entered the house. 

The house of the Mardiganians was typical of the 
homes of the well-to-do Armenians of to-day. The 
wide doorway which opened from the garden was ap- 
proached by handsome steps of white marble, and the 
spacious hall within was floored with large slabs of 
the same material. Outside, the house presented a 
rather gloomy appearance, because, perhaps, of the 
need of protection against the sometimes rigorous 
climate; inside there was every sign of luxury and 
opulence. The space of ground occupied was pro- 
digious, as the rooms were terraced, one above the 
other, the roof of one being used as a dooryard gar- 
den for the one above. 

In the large reception room, into which Old Var- 
tabed strode, there was a great stone fireplace, with a 
low divan branching out on either side and running 
around three sides of the room. Beautiful tapestry 
covers of native manufacture, and silk cushions made 
by hand, covered this divan. Soft, thick rugs of 
tekke, which is a Persian and Kurdish weave built 
upon felt foundations, were strewn over the marble 



PROLOGUE 23 

floor. Over the fireplace hung a rare Madonna; a 
landscape by a popular Armenian artist, and a Dutch 
harbor by Peniers hung on the walls at the side. In 
a corner of the room, under a floor lamp, was a piano. 
Oriental delight in bright colorings was apparent, but 
the ensemble was tasteful and subdued. 

The shepherd waited, standing, in the center of the 
room until his employer entered and gave him the 
Easter morning greeting which Armenia has preserved 
since the world was young: 

" Christ is risen from the dead, my good Vartabed ! " 

"Blessed be the resurrection of Christ," the old 
man replied, as the custom dictates. Then he spoke, 
with an earnestness which the other man quickly de- 
tected/of that which had brought him to the house. 

It was a vision he had seen during the night. " Our 
Saint Gregory appeared to me in my sleep and pressed 
his hand upon me heavily. ' Awake, Old Vartabed; 
awake! Thy sheep are in danger, even though they 
be favored of God. Awake and save them ! ' This, 
the good saint said to me. Hurriedly I arose, but 
when my old eyes were fully opened the vision was 
gone. I rushed out to the fold, but it was only I who 
disturbed the flock. They were resting peacefully. 

"But I could not sleep again. Each time my eyes 
closed our Saint stood before me, seeming to reprove 
my idleness. At dawn I took my sheep to the hills — 
and then I remembered!" 



24 PROLOGUE 

Here the shepherd hesitated. He had spoken fast, 
and was nearly breathless. His employer had listened 
with the consideration due one so old, and so faithful, 
but not without a trace of amusement in his immobile 
face. 

" It is a pity, Vartabed, your sleep was restless. 
This morning, of all others, you should be joyful. 
Tell me what it was you remembered at dawn, and 
then dismiss it from your mind." 

" Some things, Master, neither you nor I can dis- 
miss from our minds. I remembered that once before 
our Saint appeared to me in my sleep with a warning 
of danger. I gave no attention then, for I was 
younger, and thoughtless. Those, also, were joyous 
times in Armenia, for there was peace and prosperity. 
But that very day the holocaust came out of the north ; 
for that was twenty years ago." 

Now, the other man started. He was shaken by a 
convulsive shudder, and his face blanched. Twenty 
years ago — that was when a. hundred thousand of his 
people were massacred by Abdul Hamid! Without a 
word he walked to a window, separated the curtains 
and looked out upon the house garden. 

The banker, Mardiganian, was a true type of the 
successful, modern Armenian business man. He did 
not often smile, but his voice was kind, and his eyes 
were gentle. In the Easter morning promenades in 
any avenue in Europe or America he would have been 



PROLOGUE 25 

a conventional figure, passed without notice. When 
he turned from the window, after a moment, only a 
close observer could have detected in his face or man- 
ner that inexplainable, intangible something which, 
indelibly, marks a race cradled in oppression. 

" What happened twenty years ago, my Vartabed, 
can never happen again. We Armenians have done 
nothing to rouse the anger of our over-lords, the 
Turks. On the contrary, we have proven our willing- 
ness to serve the state. Our young men have been 
called into this great war which is ravaging the world. 
Even though their sympathies are with the Sultan's 
enemies, they have not shown it. They have freely 
given their lives in battle for a cause they hate, that 
the Turk may have no excuse to vent his wrath upon 
our people. Less than a week ago the Sultan's min- 
ister, the powerful Enver, expressed his gratitude to us 
for the services we are rendering the Crescent. They 
dare not molest us again." 

" But the vision that came to me last night was the 
same that would have warned me that night in 1895 
of the tragedy then in store for us." 

" This time, nevertheless, it was but an idle dream." 

The banker spoke with the finality of conviction. 
The shepherd was affronted by his calm disbelief in 
the sign of coming evil, as the shepherd considered it. 
The old man left the room and crossed the garden in 
high dudgeon. His hand was upon the gate, and in 



26 PROLOGUE 

another moment he would have been gone when a 
fresh, youthful voice arrested him. 

" Vartabed — wait ; I am coming ! " 

The old man stopped abruptly. Looking back he 
saw coming toward him the one who was closer to his 
heart than any other living thing — Arshalus, a daugh- 
ter of the Mardiganians. 

Arshalus — that means " The Light of the Morn- 
ing." There is but one word in America into which 
the Armenian name can be translated — " The Aurora." 
And no other would be so fitting. She was a merry- 
eyed child of fourteen years, hair and eyes as black 
as night; smile and spirit as sunny as the brightest 
day. Every sheep in Old Vartabed's flock was her 
pet, especially the black ones. 

When she reached the waiting shepherd Aurora 
quickly discovered that he was glum, and she chose to 
be piqued about it. 

" Surely you were not going without wishing me the 
happiness of the Easter time, or has Old Vartabed 
ceased to care for the one who plagues him so much ? " 
She made a great show of pouting, but the old man's 
hurt could not be so easily mended. Perhaps the 
sight of Aurora intensified it. 

" It is idle to wish happiness ; it is better to give it. 
When one has none to give he has no mission. I have 
no joy to give to-day, even to you, my Aurora, and 
so I had not thought of seeking you." 



PROLOGUE 27 

"That is very wrong, Vartabed. To-day Christ is 
risen, and there is joy everywhere. And even more 
for me than many others. Just yesterday my father 
told me that before another Easter comes I am to 
go away co finish my schooling — to Constantinople, 
or, perhaps, to Switzerland or Paris. Does that not 
make you happy for me, Vartabed ? " 

For an instant the old man gazed down upon the 
upturned face. Then his hand reached for the gate 
again, as if to give support to the tall, straight body 
that seemed to droop. Aurora thought she had pained 
him. With an impulsive fondness she raised her 
hands as if to rest them upon the old man's breast. 
But before she could reach him the shepherd was gone, 
and the gate had closed between them. 

An hour later Old Vartabed again stood on the sum- 
mit of the hill, looking down upon the city and the 
plains of the Mamuret-ul-Aziz, bathed, now, in the 
glory of the full morning sun. A few miles to the 
south lay the ridges and long abandoned tunnels which, 
according to tradition, once were the busy workings of 
Solomon's mines. Harpout, where the caravans stop ; 
Van, the metropolis, and Sivas, the " City of Hope," 
were far beyond the horizon, outpost cities of a nation 
which was born before history. The old man's 
thoughts visited each of these jewel cities in turn, and 
pictured the hope and faith with which they celebrated 
the coming of Easter. Then he turned again to the 



28 PROLOGUE 

spires and housetops reaching up from the plains be- 
low. For he was thinking not only of Armenia — the 
beautiful, golden Armenia of that Easter day in 1914, 
but, also, of the child who was named for " The Light 
of the Morning." 

H. L. Gates. 



THE STORY OF 
AURORA MARDIGANIAN 

CHAPTER I 

WHEN THE PASHA CAME TO MY HOUSE 

My story begins with Easter Sunday morning, in 
April, 1915. In my father's house we prepared to 
observe the day with a joyous reverence, increased by 
the news from Constantinople that the Turkish gov- 
ernment recently had expressed its gratitude for the 
loyal and valuable service of the Armenian troops in 
the Great War. When Turkey joined in the war, 
almost six months before, a great fear spread through- 
out Armenia. Without the protecting influence of 
France and England, my people were anxious lest the 
Turks take advantage of their opportunity and begin 
again the old oppression of their Christian subjects. 
The young Armenian men would have preferred to 
fight with the Sultan's enemies, but they hurried to 
enlist in the Ottoman armies, to prove they were not 
disloyal. And now that the Sultan had acknowledged 
their sacrifices, the fear of new persecutions at the 

29 



30 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

hands of our Moslem rulers gradually had disap- 
peared. 

And in all our city, Tchemesh-Gedzak, twenty miles 
north of Harpout, the capital of the district of Mamu- 
ret-ul-Aziz, there was none more grateful for the 
promise of continued peace in Armenia than my father 
and mother, and Lusanne, my elder sister and I. I 
was only fourteen years old, and Lusanne was not yet 
seventeen, but even little girls are always afraid in 
Armenia. I was quite excited that morning over my 
father's Easter gift to me — his promise that soon I 
could go to an European school and finish my educa- 
tion as befits a banker's daughter. Lusanne was to be 
married, and she was bent upon enjoying the last 
Easter day of her maidenhood. Even the early visit 
that morning of Old Vartabed, our shepherd, who 
came just after daybreak, with a prophecy of trouble, 
did not dampen our spirits. 

Standing before my looking glass I was rearrang- 
ing for the hundredth time the blue ribbons with which 
I had dressed my hair with, I must confess, a secret 
hope that they would be the envy of all the other girls 
at the church service. Lusanne was making use of 
her elder sister's privilege to scold me heartily for my 
vanity. Lusanne was always very prim, and quiet. I 
was just about to tell her that she was only jealous 
because she soon would be a wife and forbidden to 
wear blue ribbons any more, when my mother came 



WHEN THE PASHA CAME TO MY HOUSE 31 

into the room. She stopped just inside the door, and 
leaned against the wall. She did not say a word — 
just looked at me. 

" Mother, what is it ? " I cried. She did not answer, 
but silently pointed to the window. Lusanne and I 
ran at once to look down into the street There at the 
gate to our yard stood three Turkish gendarmes, each 
with a rifle, rigidly on guard. On their arms was the 
band that marked them as personal attendants of 
Husein Pasha, the military commandant in our district. 

I turned to my mother for an explanation. She had 
fallen in a heap on the floor and was weeping. She 
did not speak, but pointed downward and I knew that 
Husein Pasha had come to our house, and was down- 
stairs. Then my happiness was gone, and I, too, fell 
to the floor and cried. Somehow I felt that the end 
had come. 

For a long time the powerful Husein Pasha, who 
was very rich and a friend of the Sultan himself, had 
wanted me for his harem. His big house sat in the 
midst of beautiful gardens, just outside the city. 
There he had gathered more than a dozen of the pret- 
tiest Christian girls from the surrounding towns. In 
Armenia the Mutassarif, or Turkish commandant, is 
an oflicial of great power. He accepts no orders, ex- 
cept those that come direct from the Sultan's ministers, 
and, as a rule, he is cruel and autocratic. 

It is dangerous for an Armenian father to displease 



32 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

the Mutassarif. When this representative of the 
Sultan sees a pretty Armenian girl he would like to 
add to his harem there are many ways he may go about 
getting her. The way of Husein Pasha was to bluntly 
ask her father to sell or give her to him, with a veiled 
threat that if the father refused he would be perse- 
cuted. To make the sale of the girl legal and give the 
Mutassarif the right to make her his concubine it was 
necessary only for him to persuade or compel her to 
forswear Christ and become Mohammedan. 

Three times Husein Pasha had asked my father to 
give me to him. Three times my father had defied his 
anger and refused. The Pasha was afraid to punish 
us, as my father was wealthy, and through his friend- 
ship with the British Consul at Harpout, Mr. Stevens, 
had obtained protection of the Vali, or Governor, 
of the Mamuret-ul-Aziz province. But now the Brit- 
ish Consul was gone. The Vali was afraid of no one. 
And Husein Pasha could, I knew, do as he pleased. 
Instinctively I 4mew, too, that his visit to our house, 
with his escort of armed soldiers, meant that he had 
come again to ask for me. 

I clung to my mother and Lusanne, with my two 
younger sisters holding onto my skirt, while we lis- 
tened at the head of the stairs to my father and the 
governor talking. Husein was no longer asking for 
me — he was demanding. I heard him say : " Soon 
orders from Constantinople will arrive; you Christian 



WHEN THE PASHA CAME TO MY HOUSE 33 

dogs are to be sent away ; not a man, woman or child 
who denies Mohammed will be permitted to remain. 
When that time comes there is none to save you but 
me. Give me the girl Aurora, and I will take all your 
family under my protection until the crisis is past. 
Refuse and you know what you may expect ! " 

My father could not speak aloud. He was choked 
with fear and horror. My mother screamed. I 
begged mother to let me rush downstairs and give my- 
self to the Pasha. I would do anything to save her 
and father and my little brothers and sisters. Then 
father found his voice, and we heard him saying to 
the Pasha: 

" God's will shall be done — and He would never 
will that my child should sacrifice herself to save us." 

My mother held me closer. " Your father has 
spoken — for you and us/' 

Husein Pasha went away in anger, his escort march- 
ing stiffly behind. Scarcely had he disappeared than 
there was a great commotion in the streets. Crowds 
began to assemble at the corners. Men ran to our 
house to tell us news that had just been brought by a 
horseman who had ridden in wild haste from Harpout. 

" They are massacring at Van ; men, women and 
children are being hacked to pieces. The Kurds are 
stealing the girls ! " 

Van is the greatest city in Armenia. It was once 
the capital of the Vannic kingdom of Queen Semi- 



34 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

ramis. It was the home of Xerxes, and, we are taught, 
was built by the King Aram in the midst of what was 
the first land uncovered after the Deluge — the Holy 
Place where the ark of Noah rested. It is very dear 
to Armenians, and was one of the centers of our 
church and national life. It lies two hundred miles 
away from Tchemesh-Gedzak, and was the home of 
more than 50,000 of our people. The Vali of Van, 
Djevdet Bey, was the principal Turkish ruler in Ar- 
menia — and the most cruel. A massacre at Van 
meant that soon it would spread over all Armenia. 

They brought the horseman from Harpout to our 
house. My father tried to question him but all he 
could say was : 

" Ermenleri hep kesdiler — hep gitdi bitdi ! " — " The 
Armenians all killed — all gone, all dead ! " He 
moaned it over and over. In Harpout the news had 
come by telegraph, and the horseman who belonged in 
our city had ridden at once to warn us. 

I begged my father and mother to let me run at once 
to the palace of Husein Pasha and tell him I would 
do whatever he wished if he would save my family 
before orders came to disturb us. But mother held 
me close, while father would only say, " God's will be 
done, and that would not be it." 

Lusanne was crying. Little Aruciag and Sarah, my 
younger sisters, were crying, too. My father was very 
pale and his hands trembled when he put them on my 



WHEN THE PASHA CAME TO MY HOUSE 35 

shoulders and tried to comfort me. I closed my eyes 
and seemed to see my father and mother and sisters 
and brothers, all lying dead in the massacre I feared 
would come, sooner or later. And Husein Pasha 
had said I could save them ! But I couldn't disobey 
my father. Suddenly I thought of Father Rhoupen. 

I broke away from my mother and ran out of the 
house, through the back entrance and into the street 
that led to the church where Father Rhoupen was wait- 
ing for his congregation. No one had had the cour- 
age to tell the holy man of the news from Van. When 
I ran into the little room behind the altar he was won- 
dering why his people had not come. 

I fell at his feet, and it was a long time before I 
could stop my tears long enough to tell him why I was 
there. But he knew something had happened. He 
stroked my hair, and waited. When I could speak I 
told him of the visit of Husein Pasha, and what he said 
to us — and then I told him of the message the horse- 
man had brought. I pleaded with him to tell me that 
it would be right for me to send word to Husein Pasha 
that I would be his willing concubine if he would only 
save my parents and my brothers and sisters. 

Father Rhoupen made me tell it twice. When I 
had finished the second time he put a hand on my head 
and said, " Let us ask God, my child ! " 

Then Father Rhoupen prayed. 

He asked God to guide me in the way I should go. 



36 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

I do not remember all the prayer, for I was crying too 
bitterly and was too frightened, but I know the priest 
pleaded for me and my people, and that he reminded 
the Father we were His first believers and had been 
true to Him through many centuries of persecution. 
As the priest went on I became soothed, and uncon- 
sciously I began to listen — hoping to hear with my 
own ears the answer I felt must surely come down 
from up above to Father Rhoupen's plea. 

When he said " Amen " the priest knelt with me, 
and together we waited. Suddenly Father Rhoupen 
pressed me close to his breast and began to speak. 

" The way is clear, my child. The answer has come. 
Trust in Jesus Christ and He will save you as He 
deems best. It were better that you should die, if 
need be, or suffer even worse than death, than by your 
example lead others to forswear their faith in the 
Saviour. Go back to your father and mother and 
comfort them, but obey them." 

All that day and the next messengers rode back and 
forth between Harpout and our city, bringing the latest 
scraps of news from Van. We were filled with joy 
when we heard the Armenians had barricaded them- 
selves and were fighting back, but we dreaded the con- 
sequences. No one slept that night in our city. All 
day and all night Father Rhoupen and his assistant 
priests and religious teachers in the Christian College 
went from house to house to pray with family groups. 



WHEN THE PASHA CAME TO MY HOUSE 2>7 

The principal men in the city waited on Husein 
Pasha to ask him if we were in danger. He told them 
their fears were groundless — that the trouble at Van 
was merely a riot. My father and mother clutched 
eagerly at this half promise of security, but Tuesday 
we knew we had been deceived. That morning Husein 
Pasha ordered the doors of the district jail opened, and 
the criminals — bandits and murderers — who were 
confined there, released and brought to his palace. 

An hour later each one of these outlaws had been 
dressed in the uniform of the gendarmes, given a rifle, 
a bayonet and a long dagger and lined up in the public 
square to await orders. That is the Turkish way when 
there is bad work to do. 

At noon officers of the gendarmes, or, as they are 
called, zaptiehs, rode through the city posting notices 
on the walls and fences at every street corner. My 
father had gone to Harpout early in the morning to 
confer with rich Armenian bankers there and to appeal 
direct to Ismail Bey, the Vali. Mother was too weak 
from worry to go to the corner and read the notices, 
so Lusanne and I went at once. The paper read : 

ARMENIANS. 

You are hereby commanded by His Excellency, Husein 
Pasha, to immediately go into your houses and remain within 
doors until it is the pleasure of His Excellency to again per- 
mit you to go about your affairs. All Armenians found upon 
the streets, at their places of business or otherwise absent 



38 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

from their homes, later than one hour after noon of this day 

will be arrested and severely punished. 

(Signed) Ali Aghazade, Mayor. 

When we reported to our mother she was greatly 
worried because of our father's absence at Harpout. 
He might ride into the city at any time during the aft- 
ernoon, ignorant of the orders, and be caught in the 
streets. Our brother Paul, who was fifteen years old, 
was visiting at a neighbor's. We sent him, through 
narrow, back streets, out of the city and onto the plains 
where he could watch the road our father must ride 
along, and, should he appear before dark, warn him 
of the order. We had reason later to be thankful 
father was away. 

We could not imagine what the order meant. We 
could not bring ourselves to believe it meant a delib- 
erate massacre was planned, and that this means was 
taken to have us all in our homes for the convenience 
of the zaptiehs. 

At 4 o'clock gendarmes, among them the prisoners 
released from jail, marched up to the homes of the 
wealthiest men, with orders for them to attend an audi- 
ence with Husein Pasha. 

When mother explained to the officer who came to 
our door that my father was out of town the zaptiehs 
searched the house, roughly pushing my mother aside 
when she got in their way. They then demanded the 
keys to my father's business place. When Lusanne 



WHEN THE PASHA CAME TO MY HOUSE 39 

ran upstairs to get them the officer insisted upon going 
with her. While she was getting the keys from my 
father's room he embraced her, tearing open her dress 
as he did so. When she screamed he slapped her in 
the face so hard she fell onto the floor. He left her 
there and went out with his men. 

From our windows we could overlook the public 
square. Here the zaptiehs gathered fifty of the city's 
leading men. Among them were Father Rhoupen; 
the president of the Christian College, which had been 
founded by American missionaries ; several professors 
and physicians; bankers, the principal merchants and 
other business men. 

Instead of marching their prisoners toward the pal- 
ace of the Pasha, the guards turned them toward the 
other part of the city. Then we knew they were being 
taken, not to an audience with the commandant, but 
to the jail which had been emptied by the Mutassarif 
that morning. 

Many women, when they realized where their hus- 
bands were being taken, ignored the order to keep to 
their homes, ran into the street and tried to rush up 
to their men folk. The gendarmes knocked them 
aside with rifle butts. One woman, the wife of a pro- 
fessor, managed to break through the guard and reach 
her husband, A gendarme tried to pull her away, but 
she clung tightly, screaming. The soldier turned his 
rifle about and drove his bayonet into her. Her hus- 



40 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

band leaped at the man's throat and was killed by 
another gendarme. 

The prisoners were compelled to march over the 
bodies of the professor and his wife, while their chil- 
dren, who had also run out of their house, stood aside, 
wringing their hands and weeping, until the company 
passed, when they were permitted to tug the bodies of 
their parents into their home. None of us who 
watched dared go to the assistance of these little ones. 

The jail is a rambling stone building, built more 
than seven centuries ago. Originally it was a mon- 
astery, but the Turks took possession of it in 1580, 
and have used it as a prison ever since. It is sur- 
rounded by a high wall and has a large courtyard onto 
which the great, barren dungeons open. 

Throughout that afternoon mother, Lusanne and I 
waited anxiously for father to come from Harpout. 
Toward evening a gendarme came to the house and 
asked if father had returned yet, saying that he was 
missed " at the audience with the Mutassarif." 
Mother asked him why the men folk were taken to jail, 
if the Mutassarif wanted to see them. The soldier 
said the governor thought that would be handier, as it 
was a long walk to the palace. We were comforted 
a little by that explanation, but when evening came and 
the men had not returned to their homes we became 
worried again. And we began to fear, too, that father 
and Paul had been intercepted. 



WHEN THE PASHA CAME TO MY HOUSE 41 

At dark the wives and daughters of the men who 
had been taken from their homes could not stand the 
suspense any longer. Braving the order to remain in- 
doors they began to gather in the streets, and little 
companies of women and children, and even the more 
daring men, moved toward the jails. They waited 
outside until well toward midnight, hoping to catch a 
glimpse of their relatives or to hear what was going 
on inside. At 11 o'clock the prison gates opened and 
Husein Pasha, in his carriage and escorted by a heavy 
guard of mounted soldiers, came out. 

The women crowded around him, but the soldiers 
drove them away. Scarcely had the Pasha's carriage 
disappeared than there was shouting and screaming 
in the prison. Lusanne and I, who had stolen up to 
the prison wall, ran home frightened. Father and 
Paul were there, having reached home late in the even- 
ing. 

Father looked very careworn. He took me into his 
arms and kissed me in a strange way. Big tears were 
in his eyes when I looked into them. I knew, without 
asking, that he had not succeeded in his mission to 
Harpout for protection. We sat up all that night, 
listening to the cries that came from the prison. We 
learned the next day what had happened, when the 
one man who had escaped crept into his home to be 
hidden. 

When Husein Pasha arrived at the prison he told 



42 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

the men who had been gathered that new word had 
come from Constantinople that the Armenians were 
not loyal to Turkey, and that they had been plotting to 
help the Allies. He demanded that the prisoners tell 
him what they knew of such plots. Every one of them 
assured him there had been no such plotting, that the 
Armenians wanted only to live in peace with their 
Turkish neighbors, obey the Sultan and do him what- 
ever service was demanded of them. Husein seemed 
at last convinced and went away, saying the men could 
all return to their homes in the morning. 

While the prisoners were congratulating each other 
upon their promised release, and hoping there might 
be some way to get word to their families in the mean- 
time, gendarmes appeared and drove the men into one 
corner of the courtyard. While the others were held 
back by the levelled guns and bayonets one prisoner at 
a time was pulled into a ring of soldiers and ordered 
to confess that he had been conspiring against the 
Sultan. 

As each one denied the accusation and declared he 
would confess to nothing, he was stripped of his 
clothes and the gendarmes fell to beating him on his 
naked back with leather thongs. As fast as the men 
fainted from the lashing they were thrown to one side 
until they revived, when they were beaten again, until 
all the soldiers had taken turns with the thongs and 
were tired. Eight of the older men died under the 



WHEN THE PASHA CAME TO MY HOUSE 43 

beatings. Their bodies were thrown into a corner of 
the jail yard. 

While they were beating Father Rhoupen an officer 
interfered. He said it was a waste of time to beat the 
priest, as all priests must be killed anyway. He then 
turned to Father Rhoupen and told him he could live 
only if he would forswear Christ and become Moham- 
medan. If he refused, the officer said, he would be 
beaten until he died. 

Poor Father Rhoupen was almost too weak to an- 
swer. When the soldiers dropped him, at the officer's 
command, he fell into a heap on the ground. When 
he tried to speak his head shook and the Turk thought 
he was signifying he would accept Mohammed. 

" Hold him up — on his f eet," the officer ordered. 

Two soldiers lifted him. The officer commanded 
him to repeat the creed of Islam — " There is only one 
God, and Mohammed is his prophet." 

" There is only one God " — Father Rhoupen began, 
just as clearly as he could, and with his eyes turned 
full upon the cruel officer. He stopped for breath, 
and then went on — " and Jesus Christ, His Son, is 
my Saviour ! " 

The officer drew his sword and cut off Father Rhou- 
pen's head. 

Professor Poladian, president of the College, was 
next told that he might save his life if he would pro- 
fess Mohammed. Professor Poladian was one of the 



44 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

most loved men in all Armenia. He had studied at 
Yale University, in the United States, and had been 
highly honored by England and France because of 
his noble deeds. He was very old. 

I loved him more than any man besides my father, 
because once when I was very little I was sick and 
cried when I had to stay away from a Christmas tree 
at the College on which Professor Poladian had hung 
bags of candy for all the little girls of Tchemesh- 
Gedzak. Professor Poladian asked Lusanne, my sis- 
ter, why I was not with the other children who gath- 
ered about the tree, and when she told him I was at 
home, ill, and that I cried because I couldn't come, he 
drove all the way to our house, almost two miles, 
brought me my candy bag and told me the Christ- 
mas story of the birth of Christ. I remember after 
that I always wanted to pray to Professor Poladian 
after I had prayed to God, until my mother made me 
understand why I shouldn't. 

Professor Poladian was not beaten, but the officer 
told him he had been spared only that he might swear 
faith in Islam. The Professor was almost overcome 
with his suffering at having to witness the treatment of 
his friends, but he told the officer he would give his 
life rather than deny his religion. The soldiers then 
tore out his finger nails, one by one, and his toe nails 
and pulled out his hair and beard, and then stabbed 
him with knives until he died. 



WHEN THE PASHA CAME TO MY HOUSE 45 

Throughout the night the screams from the prison 
yard continued, and the women waiting outside were 
frantic. At dawn soldiers drove the women away, 
telling them their husbands would soon be home. 

As soon as the women were out of sight the soldiers 
took out the men who had lived through the torture, 
and, tying them together with a long rope, marched 
them out of the city behind the jail toward the Murad 
River, ten miles away. When they reached the river 
bank the soldiers set upon the men and stabbed them 
to death with bayonets. Only the one escaped by pull- 
ing a dead body on top of him and making believe that 
he, too, was dead. 

The next day, Thursday, which is the day before 
the Mohammedan Sunday, the soldiers went through 
the streets at 9 o'clock, calling for all Armenian men 
over eighteen years of age, to assemble in the public 
square. In every street an officer stopped at house 
doors and told the people that any man over eighteen 
who was not in the square in one hour would be killed. 

Mother and Lusanne and I flew to father's arms. 
We each tried to get our arms around his neck. He 
was very sad and quiet. " One at a time, my dear 
ones," he said, and made us wait while he kissed and 
said good-by to each of us in turn. Little Sarah, who 
was seven, and Hovnan, who was six, he held in his 
arms a long time. Then he kissed me on the lips, such 
as he had never done before. He told mother she 



46 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

must not cry, but be very brave. Then he went out. 
Little Paul followed father at a distance, to be near 
him as long as possible. When father got to the 
square Paul tried to turn back, but a soldier saw him 
and caught him by the collar, saying, " You go along, 
too, then we won't have to gather you up with the 
women to-morrow." Father protested that Paul was 
only fifteen, but the soldiers wouldn't listen. So my 
brother never came back home. 



CHAPTER II 

THE DAYS OF TERROR BEGIN 

I had gone upstairs to my window to watch father 
crossing the street to the square. Mother had fallen 
onto a divan in the reception room downstairs. 
Lusanne and my little brothers and sisters stayed with 
her, even the little ones trying to make believe that, 
perhaps, father would return. When I saw the soldier 
take Paul, too, I screamed. Mother heard and came 
running upstairs, Lusanne and the others following. 
I was the only one who had seen. I would have to 
tell them — to tell them that not only father, but that 
little Paul, who had wanted to be a priest, when he 
grew up, like Father Rhoupen, was gone too. For a 
moment I could not speak. Mother thought something 
had happened to father in the street, and that I had 
seen. 

" Tell me quick — what is it ? Have they killed 
him ? " she cried. I couldn't answer — except to shake 
my head. Suddenly mother missed Paul for the first 
time. Something must have told her. She asked 
Lusanne : " Where is my boy ? Where is Paul ? 
Why isn't he here?" 

47 



48 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

Lusanne started to run downstairs to look in the 
yard. I motioned her not to go. I put my arms 
around mother and said, between my sobs : 

" They took Paul too — he is with our father ! " 

Mother sank upon the floor and buried her face. 
Lusanne and I knelt beside her. But she didn't cry. 
Her eyes were dry when she gathered us to her. I 
never saw my mother cry after that, even when the 
Turkish soldiers, at the orders of Ahmed Bey, were 
beating her to death while they made me look on be- 
fore returning me to Ahmed's harem. 

Out of my window we could see the men comforting 
each other, or talking excitedly with the leaders, in 
the square. By the middle of the afternoon more than 
3,000 men and older boys had assembled. The soldiers 
and zaptiehs searched our houses that no man over 
eighteen might escape. When women clung to hus- 
bands and fathers the soldiers said the men were sum- 
moned only to be addressed by Ishmail Bey, the Vali, 
who was coming up from his capital, Harpout. Some 
of the women believed this explanation. Others knew 
it was not true. 

Not very far from our house was the home of 
Andranik, a young man who had graduated from the 
American School at Marsovan, and who had come to 
our city with his parents to teach in our schools. He 
was very popular in the city, and it was to him Lusanne 
was to be married. When the Turks conscripted 



THE DAYS OF TERROR BEGIN 49 

young Armenian men they spared Andranik because 
of his position as a teacher. 

When his father answered the summons to the 
square Andranik remained behind. He disguised him- 
self in a dress belonging to his sister and made his 
way to the edge of the city where he bought a horse 
from a Turk whom he knew he could trust. By the 
Turk, Andranik sent word to Lusanne that he would 
ride to Harpout, where he knew the German Con- 
sul-General, Count Wolf von Wolfskehl, and beg of 
this powerful German official to intercede for the Ar- 
menians of Tchemesh-Gedzak. 

Lusanne was much encouraged when she heard An- 
dranik was safe. All afternoon neighboring women, 
some of them wives of wealthy men, came to our house 
to look from our windows into the square, hoping to 
catch a glimpse of their loved ones. The soldiers 
would not let the women gather near the square, nor 
communicate with the men. 

One pretty woman, Mrs. Sirpouhi, who had been 
married not quite a year to a son of Our richest manu- 
facturer, was just about to become a mother. From 
our window she caught sight of her husband. She 
could not keep herself from running across to the 
square, screaming as she went, " My Vartan — my 
Vartan ! " Vartan was his name. 

The young husband heard his wife calling and ran 
to the edge of the square, holding out his arms to her. 



50 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

Just as she was about to throw herself upon him a 
zaptieh struck her on the head with his gun. When 
this zaptieh and his companions saw the young woman 
was almost a mother they took turns running their 
bayonets into her. The husband fell to the ground. I 
think he fainted. The soldiers carried him off. They 
left his bride's body where it fell. 

At sundown, when nearly all the Christian women 
in the city must have cried their eyes dry, as did Lu- 
sanne and I, we heard the muezzin calling the First 
Prayer from the minarets of the El Hasan Mosque in 
the Mohammedan quarter. It seemed to me the muez- 
zin was mocking us as he sang : " There is no God 
but Allah ; come to prayer ; come to security ! " With- 
out letting mother know I knelt by myself and asked 
our God if He would not think of us — and send our 
fathers back. Perhaps He heard me for as soon as 
the Mohammedan prayer was over a soldier came to 
our door. 

He said father had paid him to bring a message; 
that he would be able to speak to us if we should go 
at once to the north corner of the square. To prove 
his message was true the soldier showed us father's 
ring. 

With my little sisters and brothers holding to our 
hands, mother, Lusanne and I ran quickly to the north 
corner, and there father and Paul were awaiting us. 
For a time he could not speak. Then he said : 



THE DAYS OF TERROR BEGIN 5 1 

" We are to be driven into the desert ! " 

The officers had told them they would be taken only 
to Arabkir, sixty miles away, and allowed to camp 
there until the Turks were ready for them to return 
home again. Father said he hoped this were true — 
but he did not believe they would be allowed to return. 
He told mother that since little Paul was along he 
would like to have her bring him a blanket to wrap up 
in at night, and money. He had with him a hundred 
liras, or $440. in American money, but perhaps if he 
had more, he thought he could bribe the soldiers to let 
Paul ride a horse, or perhaps, escape when they began 
the march. 

Mother and I hurried to the house. She went into 
the basement, where father had hidden a great deal 
of money for us. When I went to get a blanket I 
thought of my " yorgan," a birthday blanket father had 
brought me from Smyrna when I was ten years old. 
It was the most beautiful thing I had. The Ten Com- 
mandments were woven into it, and it had been made, 
many people had said, a thousand years ago. I took 
this to Paul and another blanket for father. Paul 
cried when he saw I had given him my yorgan. We 
wrapped dried fruit, and cheese in thin bread, also, to 
give them. Mother took 200 liras — almost a thou- 
sand dollars. 

The soldiers would not let us talk long to father the 
second time. We stood across the street just looking 



52 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

at him until it was too dark to see him any more, and 
then we went home. We never saw father or Paul 
again. 

When we reached our house we found Abdoullah 
Bey, the police chief, waiting in the parlor. Abdoullah 
always had been a friend of father's, and we thought 
him a kindly man. Perhaps he would have helped us 
if he could, but when mother begged him to have Paul, 
at least, restored to us, he showed us a written order, 
signed by Ismail Bey, the Vali, which had been given 
him by Husein Pasha. It read: 

" During the process of deportation of the Arme- 
nians if any Moslem resident or visitor from the sur- 
rounding country endeavors to conceal or otherwise 
protect a Christian, first his house shall be burned, 
then the Christian killed before his eyes, and then the 
Moslem's family and himself shall be killed." 

" You see I cannot help you," Abdoullah Bey said, 
" even though I would. But I can advise you as a 
friend. You have two daughters who are young. It 
is still possible for them to renounce your religion and 
accept Allah. I will take word personally, if you wish, 
to Husein Pasha that your Lusanne and Aurora will 
say the rek'ah (the oath to Mohammed). He is will- 
ing to take them both, and thus spare them and you 
many things, which, perhaps, are about to happen. 
Soon it may be too late." 

Husein wanted us both! I remembered Father 



THE DAYS OF TERROR BEGIN 53 

Rhoupen's words, " Trust in God and be true to Him." 
But it seemed as if I ought to sacrifice myself. Even 
then I would have gone to the Pasha's house, but 
mother said to Abdoullah: 

' Tell the Pasha we belong to God, and will accept 
whatever He wills ! " Abdoullah respected mother for 
her courage. He bowed to her as he went out. " I 
am sorry for what may come," he said. 

That evening Andranik returned from Harpout and 
came at once to our house. He still wore his sister's 
dress. When he appeared at the door Lusanne ran 
into his arms. I read in his face bad news. 

" I begged of Count von Wolfskehl to save us. He 
said the Sultan had ordered that no Christian subject 
be left alive in Turkey, and that he thought the Sultan 
had done right." 

Lusanne secretly had thought Andranik would be 
successful. She had such confidence in him she did 
not think he could fail. She was overcome when her 
hope was destroyed, but she thought more of Andranik 
than of herself. She begged him to try to escape. 
Andranik decided he would remain in his women's 
clothes. Lusanne cut of? some of her own hair and 
arranged it on his head so bits of it would show under 
his shawl and make him look more nearly like a girl. 
They thought perhaps he might get out of the city at 
night, unmolested, and hide with friendly farmers. 
But, somehow, the authorities learned Andranik had 



54 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

not surrendered himself. Early in the evening the 
zaptiehs undei command of Abdoullah, surrounded his 
house and demanded that he come out. When his 
mother said he was not there, the gendarme chief re- 
plied that if he did not appear at once the house would 
be burned with all who were in it. 

A neighbor woman ran in to tell us. Andranik 
threw off his disguise, took an old saber father had 
hung on our wall, and rushed out. He cut his way 
through the gendarmes and got into his home, where 
he found his mother and sister and his other relatives 
in a panic of fear. The gendarmes shouted to him to 
come out at once. Andranik saw them bringing up 
cans of oil. He kissed his mother and sister again 
and stepped out into the street. They killed him with 
knives on the doorstep. His sister ran out and threw 
herself on his body, and they killed her, too. When a 
neighbor told us what had happened, Lusanne ran out 
to Andranik's house and helped his mother carry in 
the two bodies. 

Father and the other men were taken away that 
night. In our house we were sitting in my room try- 
ing to pick them out from the shadows in the square 
made by the torches and lanterns of the zaptiehs, when 
many new soldiers appeared, and, suddenly, there was 
a great shouting. Soon we saw the men, formed into 
a long line, march out of the square, with zaptiehs and 
soldiers all about them. It was too dark for us to 



THE DAYS OF TERROR BEGIN 55 

identify father and Paul, but we knew they would be 
looking up at our window and hoped they could see us. 

They took the men toward the Kara River, which is 
a branch of the Euphrates. Many were so old and 
feeble they could not walk so far, and fell to the 
ground. The zaptiehs killed these with their knives 
and left their bodies behind. It was daylight when 
they came to the little village of Gwazim, which is on 
the river bank twelve miles away. There was a large 
building at Gwazim which the Turks sometimes used 
as a barracks when there was war with the Kurds, and 
at other times as a prison. Half the men were put 
into this building and told they would have to stay 
until the next day. The zaptiehs then took the others 
across the river toward Arabkir. 

At noon of that day the zaptiehs returned to Gwa- 
zim. They had killed all the men they had taken 
across the river just as soon as they were out of sight 
of the village. When we, in Tchemesh-Gedzak, heard 
that part of our men had been left in the prison, hun- 
dreds of women walked the dusty road to Gwazim. 
Lusanne and I went, hoping to get one more glimpse 
of father and Paul. 

In Gwazim there was an aged Armenian woman 
who had lived in our city at the time of the massacre 
in 1895. She was pretty then, and when the Kurds 
stole her she saved her life by turning Mohammedan. 
Then she was sold to a Turkish bey at Gwazim. He 



56 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

kept her in his harem until she grew old. All the 
time, while professing Islam, she secretly was Chris- 
tian. The bey had given her the name " Fatimeh." 

Fatimeh persuaded the guards at the prison to let 
her take water to the men. When she told the pris- 
oners the zaptiehs had returned without the other men 
they knew the same fate was in store for them. 

When Fatimeh came out she told me father and Paul 
were inside and had sent word to us to be hopeful. 
In a little while we saw her going into the prison 
again, this time with two big rocks, so heavy she could 
hardly carry them, hidden in her water buckets. She 
came out again and filled her buckets with coal oil. 

When it was dark the younger men, who were strong 
and brave, killed all the older men by hitting their 
heads with the rocks Fatimeh had taken them. Fa- 
ther killed Paul first, because he was so little. When 
all the old and feeble men were dead, the young men 
prayed that God would think they had done right in 
not letting the old men suffer and then they spread the 
oil, set it afire, and threw themselves in the flames. 
Fatimeh told us what had happened while the prison 
burned. The zaptiehs suspected her and carried her 
into the burning building and left her. 

It was almost dawn Saturday morning when Lu- 
sanne and I returned to mother. " As God wills, so 
be it," was all she said when we told her what had 
happened at the prison. She said there had been a 



THE DAYS OF TERROR BEGIN 57 

great celebration in the El Hasan mosque, in honor 
of the Mohammedan Sunday, while we were at Gwa- 
zim. A special imam, or prayer reader, had come all 
the way from Trebizond to read special prayers set 
aside for such great events as the beginning of a holy 
war or massacre of Christians. 

That morning soldiers went through the streets post- 
ing a new paper on the walls. It was what we had 
feared — an order from the Governor that all Arme- 
nian Christian women in the city, young and old, must 
be ready in three days to leave their homes and be de- 
ported — where, the order did not say. 

As soon as the Turkish residents heard of the new 
order many of them began to go about the Armenian 
half of the town offering to buy what the Armenian 
women wanted to sell. As there were none of the 
men left, the women had no one to advise them. To 
our house, which was one of the best in the city, there 
came many rich Turks, who told us we had better 
sell them our rugs and the beautiful laces mother, 
Lusanne and I had made. 

Every Armenian girl is taught to make pretty laces. 
No girl is happy until she can make for herself a lace 
bridal veil. Always the Turks are eager to buy these, 
as they sell for much money to foreign traders, but no 
Armenian bride will sell her veil unless she is starv- 
ing. Lusanne and I had made our veils, and had put 
them away until we should need them. We knew we 



58 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

could not carry them with us when we were deported, 
as they would soon be stolen. So we sold them, and 
mother's, too. The most we could get was a few 
piasters. Since I have come to America I have seen 
spreads and table covers, made from such bridal veils 
as ours, for sale in shops for hundreds of dollars. 
Father had brought us many rugs from Harpout, 
Smyrna and Damascus. For these mother could get 
only a few pennies. 

On the second day after the proclamation, which 
was our Sunday, the soldiers visited all the houses. 
They walked in without knocking. They pretended to 
be looking for guns and revolvers, but what they took 
was our silver and gold spoons and vases. 

That afternoon a company of horsemen rode past 
our house. We ran to the window and saw they were 
Aghja Daghi Kurds, the crudest of all the tribes. 
At their head rode the famous Musa Bey, the chieftain 
who, a few years before, had waylaid Dr. Raynolds 
and Dr. Knapp, the famous American missionaries, 
and had robbed them and left them tied together on 
the road. 

The Kurds rode to the palace of Husein Pasha. In 
a little while they rode away again, and some of the 
Pasha's soldiers rode with them. That meant, we 
knew, that the Governor had given the Kurds permis- 
sion to waylay us when we were outside the city. 

All that night the women sat up in their homes. 



THE DAYS OF TERROR BEGIN 59 

In our house mother went from room to room, look- 
ing at the little things on the walls and in the cup- 
boards that had been hers since she was a little girl. 
She sat a long time over father's clothes. I got out 
my playthings and cried over them. Some of them 
had been my grandmother's toys. Lusanne did not 
cry. She thought only of Andranik and the loss of 
her bridal veil, and her tears had dried, like mother's. 
Little Hovnan and Mardiros, our brothers, and Sarah 
and Aruciag, our sisters, cried very hard when we 
told they must say good-by to their dolls and their 
kites. 

When morning of the last day came I slipped out 
of our home to visit Mariam, my playmate, who lived 
a few doors away. Mariam's family was not very 
rich, and mother had said I might give her twenty 
liras from our money, that she might have it to bribe 
soldiers for protection. But Mariam was not there. 

During the night zaptiehs had entered her house 
and taken her out of her bed, with just her nightdress 
on, and had carried her away. The soldiers said 
Rehim Bey had promised them money if they would 
bring Mariam to his house. Mariam's mother and 
little brother were kneeling beside her empty bed when 
I found them. 

On my way back to our house a Turk stopped me. 
He asked me to go with him. He said I might as well, 
as " all the pretty Christian girls would have to give 



60 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

themselves to Turks or be killed anyway." I broke 
away and ran home as fast as I could. I could not 
forget the look on that Turk's face as he spoke to me. 
It was the first time I had ever seen such a look in a 
man's face. I tried to explain to mother. She put 
her arms around me, but all she said was : 

" My poor little girl ! " 

The women had been allowed until noon to assem- 
ble in the square. Already they were arriving there, 
with horse, donkey and ox carts, some with as many 
of their things as they could heap on their carts, others 
with just blankets and comforts, a favorite rug and 
bread and fruits. In Armenia every family keeps a 
year's supply of food on hand. The women had to 
leave behind all they could not carry. 

When it came time for us to go I thought again of 
the look in that Turk's face. Foi the first time I real- 
ized just what it would mean to be a captive in one 
of the harems of the rich Turks whose big houses look 
down from the hills all about the city. I had heard 
of the Christian girls forced into haremliks of these 
houses, but I had never really understood. Lusanne 
was older. She knew more than I. " If only I could 
have died with Andranik," she said. 

Mother thought of a plan she hoped might save Lu- 
sanne and me from the harems or a worse fate among 
the Kurds and soldiers. She brought out two yash- 
maks, or veils, such as Turkish women wear on the 



THE DAYS OF TERROR BEGIN 6l 

street, and made us put them on, hiding our faces. 
Over these she had us put on a feradjeh, a Turkish 
woman's cloak. We looked quite as if we were Turk- 
ish women, with all our faces hidden. 

" It is only death that faces me, but for you, my 
daughters, there are even greater perils," mother said 
to us. " You will be able now to walk in the streets 
and the soldiers will think you are Mohammedan 
women. Try to reach Miss Graham, at the orphan- 
age. Perhaps she can hide you until there is a way 
for you to escape into the north, where the sea is. 
And if you do find safety, thank God, and remember 
He is always with you." Then she kissed us and bade 
us go. 

Miss Graham, who was an English girl, had come to 
our city from the American College at Marsovan, to 
teach in our school for orphaned Armenian girls. She 
was very young and pretty. The Turks had seemed 
to respect her, and mother thought we would be safe 
with her. 

While mother went to the square with Aruciag, 
Sarah, Hovnan and Mardiros, Lusanne and I mingled 
with Mohammedan women who had gathered to watch 
the scenes at the square and to bargain for pieces of 
jewelry and other things the Armenian women knew 
they must either sell or have stolen from them. We 
planned to wait until dark before venturing to reach 
Miss Graham's. 



62 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

Soon we saw Turks, both rich citizens and military 
officers, walking about in the square roughly examining 
the Christian girls. When they were pleased by a 
girl's appearance these beys and aghas tried to per- 
suade their mothers to let them profess Mohammedan- 
ism and go away with them, promising to save her 
relatives from deportation. When mothers refused 
the Turks often struck them. Officers killed some 
mothers who clung too closely to their daughters. 

Many young girls gave in to the Turks and agreed 
to swear faith in Allah for the sake of their mothers, 
sisters and brothers. Toward evening the khateeb, or 
keeper of the mosque, was brought to receive their 
" conversions." 

More than fifty girls took the oath. Just as soon as 
the oaths were all taken the officers signaled to the 
zaptiehs and they took all these girls away from their 
families and gathered them at one side of the square. 

Then the richer beys began to examine the apos- 
tasized girls. The soldiers would give a girl to the 
one who paid them the most money, unless an officer 
also wanted her. The higher military officers were 
given first choice. 

One by one the soldiers dragged the girls who had 
sacrificed their religion in vain to save their mothers 
and relatives out of the square and toward the homes 
of the Turks. Lusanne and I had gone close to watch 
our chance to speak once more to mother. We saw 



THE DAYS OF TERROR BEGIN 63 

everything. And while they were taking the girls 
away we saw a zaptieh carrying Miss Graham in his 
arms. She struggled hard, but the zaptieh was too 
strong. We learned afterward the soldiers had gone 
to her school to get the little Armenian girls, and when 
Miss Graham tried to fight them they said her country 
couldn't help her now, and since she was a Christian 
they would take her, too. 

It was to Rehim Bey's house, where Mariam al- 
ready had been carried, they took Miss Graham. 
They did not even try to make her become a Moham- 
medan. Rehim Bey was very powerful, and was a 
cousin of Talaat Bey, the Minister of the Interior at 
Constantinople. 



CHAPTER III 

VAHBY BEY TAKES HIS CHOICE 

For a time Lusanne and I debated whether we 
should return to the square and join mother, since 
Miss Graham had been stolen and could not help us, 
or whether we should make an effort to escape since 
we had so far escaped notice in our disguises. We 
decided that, perhaps, if we could reach the house of 
a friendly Turk, outside the city, and we knew of many 
of these, we might find a way to help mother. We did 
not know how this could ever be done, but we clung 
to a hope that surely some one would aid us. 

When it was quite dark we crept through side streets 
to our deserted house and succeeded in getting into 
the garden without attracting attention. We dared 
not make a light, or remain on the lower floors, sol- 
diers might enter the house at any moment. The 
safest place to hide, we thought, would be the attic. 

In the attic there were a number of boxes of old 
things of mother's. We searched until we found some 
old clothes, and each of us put on an old dress of 
mother's under the cloaks she had given us. If we 

64 



VAHBY BEY TAKES HIS CHOICE 65 

were discovered, the old clothes, we thought, might 
deceive the Turks if we could keep our faces covered. 

Neither Lusanne nor I had slept during the three 
days the Turks allowed the Armenian women to pre- 
pare for deportation. Toward morning we were both 
so worn out we fell asleep. Suddenly I awoke to find 
an ugly zaptieh standing over me, a sword in his hand. 
He had kicked me. Three or four others, who, with 
the leader, had broken in to search for valuables, were 
coming up the ladder into the attic, and the one who 
had found us was calling out to them : 

" Mouhadjirler — anleri keselim ! " — (" Here are 
refugees — let's kill them ! ") 

The zaptieh's shout awakened Lusanne and she 
screamed. 

By this time the Turks had pulled me to my feet, 
but when Lusanne screamed they dropped me. 
" That's no old one," the chief zaptieh said, as he 
turned to my sister. " Her voice is young." 

They kicked me aside while they gathered around 
Lusanne, picked her up and carried her down the lad- 
der to the floor below, where our bedrooms were. 
There they found a lamp and lighted it from the torch 
one of them carried. They began to examine Lu- 
sanne, who screamed and fought them desperately. I 
followed them down the ladder and ran into the room, 
but when they saw me one of them struck me with his 
fists, and I fell. They thought I at least was as old 



66 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

as my clothes looked. One of them said, " Stick the 
old one on a bayonet if she don't keep still." I could 
do nothing but stay on the floor, crouch tight to the 
wall and look on. 

A zaptieh tore off Lusanne's veil and cloak. When 
they saw her face and that she was young and good 
looking they shouted and laughed. The leader 
dropped his gun and laid his sword on a table and then 
took Lusanne away from the others and held her in 
his arms. She fought so hard the others had to help 
hold her while the officer kissed her. Each time he 
kissed her he laughed and all the others laughed too. 
One by one the zaptiehs caressed her, each passing her 
to the other, all much amused by her struggles. 

When Lusanne's dress was all torn and her screams 
grew weak I could not stand it any longer. I crept 
up to the men on my knees and begged them to stop. 
I knew there was no longer any hope that we might 
escape, so I pleaded : " Please take us to the square 
to our relatives; we will get money for you if you 
will only spare us." 

They allowed us to leave the house, but followed 
across the street to the square. It was daylight now 
and the women were stirring about, sharing with each 
other the bread and meats some had brought with 
them. The zaptiehs made Lusanne stay with them 
while I searched for mother. She was caring for a 
baby whose mother had died during the night. The 



VAHBY BEY TAKES HIS CHOICE 6j 

first thing she asked was, " Where is Lusanne — have 
they got her ? " 

Mother gave me two liras. The zaptiehs took them 
and shoved Lusanne away. She fainted when she 
realized they had released her. 

During the first day and night no one knew what 
was to happen. Such of the soldiers as would answer 
questions said only that the Pasha had ordered the 
women deported. None knew how or when. During 
the first night three of the mothers of girls who had 
been taken by the Turks the day before died. One of 
them killed herself while her other children were sleep- 
ing around her. So many were crowded into the 
square not all could find room to lie down and the 
soldiers killed any who attempted to move into the 
street. 

In the center of the square there was a band-stand, 
where the Mutassarif's band often played in the sum- 
mer evenings. In this band-stand the soldiers had 
put the little girls and boys taken from the Christian 
Orphanage when they carried off Miss Graham. 
There were thirty litle girls, none of them more than 
twelve years old, and almost as many boys. 

The children were crying bitterly when Lusanne 
and I, at mother's suggestion, went to see if we could 
not help care for them. There was no food for them 
except what the women could spare from their own 
stores. The Turks never give food to their prisoners. 



68 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

Toward noon of that day Vahby Bey, the military 
commandant of the whole vilayet, who had under 
him almost an army corps, rode into the city with 
his staff and a company of hamidieh, or Kurdish 
cavalry. He was on his way to Harpout, from 
Erzindjan, a big city in the north, where he had 
attended a council of war with Enver Pasha, the 
Turkish Commander-in-Chief. 

Vahby Bey walked from his headquarters into the 
public square, accompanied by his staff. Hundreds 
of women crowded around him, but his staff officers 
beat them away with swords and canes. The gen- 
eral walked at once to the band-stand and looked at 
the children. Abdoullah Bey, the chief of the gen- 
darmes, was with him, and they talked in low voices. 

When Vahby Bey had gone, several officers began 
to ask Armenian girls if they would like to accom- 
pany the orphans and take care of them in the place 
where the government would put them. The officers 
said they would take several girls for this purpose, 
and thus save them the terrors of deportation and 
death, or worse, if they would first agree to become 
Mohammedan. 

Many mothers thought this the only way to save 
their daughters from the harem. Some of the 
younger women, among them brides whose husbands 
had been killed, were so discouraged and frightened 
they were eager to accept this chance. The officers 



VAHBY BEY TAKES HIS CHOICE 69 

said only young girls would be accepted, and bade 
all who wanted to take advantage of the opportunity 
to gather at the band-stand. More than two hun- 
dred assembled, with mothers and relatives hanging 
onto them. I don't think any of them really was 
willing to forswear Christ, but they thought they 
would be forgiven if they seemed to do so to save 
themselves from being massacred, stolen in the desert 
or forced to be concubines. 

A hamidieh officer, looking smart and neat in his 
costly uniform, went to the stand to select the girls. 
He chose twelve of the very prettiest. One girl who 
was tall and very handsome, and whose father had 
been a rich merchant, refused to take the Mohamme- 
dan oath unless her two sisters, both younger, also 
were accepted. The officer consented. The three 
girls had no mother, only some younger brothers, 
and these the officers said might accompany the or- 
phans. The three sisters were very glad they were 
to be saved. One of them was a friend of Lusanne's, 
and to her she said : " Our God will know why we 
are doing this ; we will always pray to Him in secret." 

Esther Magurditch, daughter of Boghos Artin, a 
great Armenian author and poet, who lived in our 
city, also was willing to take the oath, and was 
chosen. Esther had been one of my playmates. 
Her mother was an English woman, who had mar- 
ried her father when he was traveling in Europe. 



70 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

Esther had married Vartan Magurditch, a young 
lawyer, just a week before. When both her father 
and husband were taken from her she almost lost her 
mind. 

When all the fourteen girls had said the Mohamme- 
dan rek'ah, soldiers took them with the orphans to 
the big house in which Esther's family had lived. It 
was the largest Armenian home in the city. 

As soon as the children and the apostasized girls 
entered the house Esther prepared a meal for them 
from the bread and other food that had been left. 
While the children were eating the girls were sum- 
moned to another part of the house, where an aged 
Mohammedan woman awaited them with yashmaks, 
or Turkish veils, which she told them they must put 
on, as they had become Mohammedan women and 
must not let their faces be seen. 

The young women were then told to seat themselves 
until an officer came to give further instructions. 
They still were waiting in the room when childish 
voices in the other part of the house were lifted up 
in screams. The girls rushed to tfie door, only to 
find it locked. 

Suddenly the door opened and Vahby Bey, with 
his chief of staff, Ferid Bey, and Ali Riza Effendi, the 
Police Commissary, whose headquarters were in Har- 
pout, entered. With them were a number of other 
smartly dressed officers, who had been traveling with 



VAHBY BEY TAKES HIS CHOICE Jl 

General Vahby. The girls fell to their knees before 
the officers, and asked them, in Allah's name, to let 
them go to the children. The officers laughed. The 
three sisters, who had taken their little brothers with 
the other children, appealed to General Vahby to tell 
them what had happened to their little ones. Vahby 
Bey did not answer, but pointed to the taller one of 
the three girls, the one who was so handsome, and 
said to the chief of staff: "This one I will take; 
guard hex carefully." Ferid Bey, the chief officer, 
then called some soldiers, who picked up the girl and 
carried her upstairs to a room which Vahby Bey had 
occupied. Vahby Bey followed. Ferid Bey then se- 
lected Esther, and soldiers carried her up to an- 
other room. Ferid Bey followed and dismissed the 
soldiers, with orders to place a guard outside his 
door and another outside the door of Vahby Bey's 
room. 

Downstairs the other officers of Vahby Bey's staff 
each selected a girl, the officers of higher rank taking 
first choice. There were three girls left, one of them 
the youngest sister of the girl Vahby Bey had taken, 
and the soldiers took possession of these, not even 
removing them from the room. 

How long these three girls lived I cannot tell. It 
was Esther who told us what happened that after- 
noon in her house, for she was the only one of the 
fourteen who escaped alive. Before she got away 



72 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

from the house she looked into the room where the 
soldiers had been, and saw that the three girls were 
dead. 

Esther tried to resist Ferid Bey, and to plead with 
him; but he threatened to kill her. When she told 
him she would rather die he opened the door so she 
could see the men standing guard in the hall, and said 
to her: 

" Very well then ; if you do not be quiet I will give 
you to the soldiers ! " 

Surely God will not blame Esther for shrinking 
away from the sight of those many men and allowing 
Ferid Bey, who was only one man, to remain. 

The officers busied themselves with the girls until 
evening. When Ferid Bey left her Esther begged 
him again to at least tell her where the children were, 
that she might go to them. He had assured her dur- 
ing the afternoon that the orphans were safe, and 
that the girls could return to them later. Now he 
pretended no longer. " We have no time to bother 
with the children of unbelievers," he said,. " We 
drowned them in the river ! " 

Ferid Bey told the truth. We found some of their 
bodies when we passed that way later on. The sol- 
diers had tied the children together with ropes in 
groups of ten and had driven them to Kara Su, also 
a branch of the Euphrates, ten miles away. Those 
who were too little to walk or keep up with the others, 



VAHBY BEY TAKES HIS CHOICE 73 

the soldiers had killed with their bayonets or gun 
handles. They left their bodies, still tied together, 
at the roadside. On the river banks we found other 
bodies that had been washed up. 

As soon as Ferid Bey had gone and Esther heard 
the other officers assembling on the floor below, some- 
thing warned her to try to escape immediately. Her 
clothes had been nearly all torn away, but she dared 
not wait even to cover herself. She climbed onto the 
roof by a small stairway which the Turks were not 
guarding, and hid herself there. 

General Vahby and his officers went to their quar- 
ters. The soldiers hunted out the girls they had 
left behind. Esther heard them fighting among them- 
selves over the prettiest ones. After a time most 
of the girls died. The soldiers killed the rest with 
their swords when they were finished with them. 
From what Esther heard them saying to each other 
as they did this, she believed they had been ordered 
not to leave any of the young women alive as wit- 
nesses to Vahby Bey and his officers having done such 
things openly. 

Esther crept out of the house and crawled through 
a back street to the square. She found my mother 
and fell into her arms. When daylight came a sol- 
dier saw her and recognized her as one of the girls 
who had apostasized the day before, and the zaptiehs 
carried her away. 



74 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

At noon more soldiers came to the square, with 
zaptiehs and hamidieh, and officers began to go among 
us, saying that within one hour we were to march. 
They told us we were to be taken to Harpout, but 
we soon saw our destination was in the direction of 
Arabkir. 

That last hour in our city, which had been the home 
of many of our family ancestors for centuries, and 
beyond the borders of which but few of our neigh- 
bors ever had traveled, was spent by most of the 
mothers and their children in prayer. There was 
almost no more weeping or wailing. The strong, 
young women gathered close to them the aged ones 
or frail mothers with very young babies. Each of 
us who had more strength than for our own needs 
tried to find some one who needed a share of it. 

We were encouraged a little when the time came 
for us to move by the apparent kindness of some of 
the new Turkish soldiers, who seemed to want to make 
us as comfortable as possible. It was at the sug- 
gestion of these that many aged grandmothers whose 
daughters had more than one baby were placed to- 
gether in a group of ox carts, each with a grandchild 
that had been vveaned. The soldiers said this plan 
would relieve the young mothers of so many children 
to watch over, and would let the old women have 
company, while, being together, the soldiers could 
keep them comfortable. 



VAHBY BEY TAKES HIS CHOICE 



75 




Shabin 
Kora-ttissar 
O 

Erzindjanj 



SIVAS 




••*' 



jrtRZERUM 



Tchemesh'%^ 




THIS MAP SHOWS AURORA'S WANDERINGS 

The black line indicates the route covered by Miss Mardiganian, who 

during two years walked fourteen hundred miles. 



j6 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

When we were three hours out from town these ox 
carts fell behind. Presently the soldiers that had 
been detailed to stay with them joined the rest of the 
party ahead. When we asked where the grand- 
mothers and the babies were, the soldiers replied: 
" They were too much trouble. We killed them ! " 

It was very hot, and the roads were dusty, with no 
shade. Many women and children soon fell to the 
ground exhausted. The zaptiehs beat these with their 
clubs. Those who couldn't get up and walk as fast 
as the rest were beaten till they died, or they were 
killed outright. 

Our first intimation of what might happen to us 
at any time came when we had been on the road four 
hours. We came then to a little spot where there 
were trees and a spring. The soldiers who marched 
afoot were themselves tired, and gave us permission 
to rest a while, and get water. 

A woman pointed onto the plain, where, a little 
ways from the road, we saw what seemed to be a 
human being, sitting on the ground. Some of us 
walked that way and saw it was an Armenian woman. 
On the ground beside her were six bundles of differ- 
ent sizes, from a very little one to one as large as I 
would be, each wrapped in spotless white that 
glistened in the sun. 

We did not need to ask to know that in each of the 
bundles was the body of a child. The mother's face 



VAHBY BEY TAKES HIS CHOICE JJ 

was partially covered with a veil, which told us she 
had given up God in the hope of saving her little ones 
— but in vain! 

She did not speak or move, only looked at us with 
a great sadness in her eyes. Her face seemed fa- 
miliar and one of us knelt beside her and gently lifted 
her veil. Then we recognized her — Margarid, wife 
of the pastor, Badvelli Moses, of Kamakh, a little city 
thirty miles to the north. Badvelli Moses once had 
been a teacher in our school at Tchemesh-Gedzak. 
He was a graduate of the college at Harpout, and 
Margarid had graduated from a Seminary at Mezre. 
They were much beloved by all who knew them. 
Often Badvelli Moses had returned, with his wife and 
Sherin, their oldest daughter, who was my age, to 
Tchemesh-Gedzak to visit and speak in our churches. 

Besides Sherin, there were five smaller girls and 
boys. All were there, by Margarid's side, wrapped 
in the sheets she had carried with her when the people 
of her city were deported. 

"There were a thousand of us," Margarid said 
when we had brought her out of the stupor of grief 
which had overcome her. " They took us away with 
only an hour's notice. The first night Kurdish ban- 
dits rode down upon us and took all the men a little 
ways off and killed them. We saw our husbands die, 
one by one. They stripped all the women and chil- 
dren — even the littlest ones — so they could search 



78 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

our bodies for money. They took all the pretty girls 
and violated them before our eyes. 

" I pleaded with the commander of our soldier 
guards to protect my Sherin. He had been our 
friend in Kamakh. He promised to save us if I 
would become a Moslem, and for Sherin's sake, I did. 
He made the bandits allow us to put on our clothes 
again, and Sherin and I veiled our faces. 

" The commander detailed soldiers to escort us to 
Harpout and take me to the governor there. When 
we left the Kurds and soldiers who were tired of 
the girls were killing them, and the others as well. 
When we reached here the soldiers killed my little 
ones by mashing their heads together. They violated 
Sherin while they held me, and then cut off her 
breasts, so that she died. They left me alive, they 
said, because I had become Moslem." 

We tried to take Margarid into our party, but she 
would not come. " I must go to God with my chil- 
dren/' she said. " I will stay here until He takes 
me." So we left her sitting there with her loved 
ones. 

It was late at night and the stars were out when we 
arrived at the banks of the Kara Su. Here we were 
told by the soldiers we could camp for the night. In 
the distance we could see the light on the minaret in 
the village of Gwazim, where father and Paul had 
died in the burning prison. 



VAHBY BEY TAKES HIS CHOICE 79 

All along the road zaptiehs killed women and chil- 
dren who could not keep up with the party, and 
many of the pretty girls had been dragged to the 
side of the road, to be sent back to the party later 
with tears and shame in their faces. Lusanne and 
I had daubed our faces with mud to make us ugly, and 
I still wore my cloak and veil. 

For a time it seemed as if we were not to be mo- 
lested, as the guards remained in little groups, away 
from us. Only the scream now and then of a girl 
who had attracted some soldier's attention reminded 
us we must not sleep. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE CRUEL SMILE OF KEMAL EFFENDI 

During the night Turkish residents from cities 
near by came to our camp and sought to buy what- 
ever the women had brought with them of value. 
Many had brought a piece of treasured lace; others 
had carried their jewelry; some even had brought 
articles of silver, and rugs. There were many horse 
and donkey carts along, as the Turks encouraged all 
the women to carry as much of their belongings as 
they could. This we soon learned was done to swell 
the booty for the soldiers when the party was com- 
pletely at their mercy. 

As the civilian Turks went through the camp that 
night, they bargained also for girls and young 
women. One of them urged mother to let him take 
Lusanne. When mother refused he said to her: 

" You might as well let me have her. I will treat 
her kindly and she can work with my other servants. 
She will be sold or stolen anyway, if she is not killed. 
None of you will live very long." Several children 
were stolen early in the night by these Turks. One 
little girl of nine years was picked up a few feet 

80 



THE CRUEL SMILE OF KEMAL EFFENDI 8l 

away from me and carried screaming away. When 
her relatives complained to the soldiers, they were 
told to be glad she had escaped the long walk to the 
Syrian desert, where the rest of the party was to be 
taken. 

Dawn was just breaking, and we were thankful 
that the sleepless, horrible first night was so nearly 
over, when, in a great cloud of sand and dust, the 
Aghja Daghi Kurds, with Musa Bey at their head, 
rode down upon us. The soldiers must have known 
they were coming, for they had gathered quite a way 
from the camp, and were not surprised. Perhaps it 
was arranged when Musa Bey visited Husein Pasha, 
in Tchemesh-Gedzak, just before we were taken away. 

The horses of the Kurds galloped down all who 
were in their way, their hoofs sinking into the heads 
and bodies of scores of frightened women. The 
riders quickly gathered up all the donkeys and horses 
belonging to the families, and when these had been 
driven off they dismounted and began to walk among 
us and pick out young women to steal. Lusanne and 
I clung close to mother, who tried to hide us, but 
one of three Kurds who walked near us saw me. 

He stopped and tore my veil away. When he saw 
the mud and dirt on my face he roughly rubbed it 
off with his hands, jerking me to my feet, to look 
closer. When he saw I really was young, despite my 
disguise, he shouted. One of the other Kurds turned 



82 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

quickly and came up. When I looked up into his 
face I saw it was Musa Bey himself ! 

The bey clutched at me roughly, tore open my 
dress and threw back my hair. Then he gave a short 
command, and, so quickly, I had hardly screamed, he 
threw me across his horse and leaped up behind. In 
another instant he was carrying me in a wild gallop 
across the plains. His band rode close behind, each 
Kurd holding a girl across his horse. I struggled 
with all my strength to get free. I wanted to throw 
myself under the horse's hoofs and be trampled to 
death. But the bey held me across his horse's shoul- 
der with a grip of iron, as he galloped to the west, 
skirting the banks of the river. 

I screamed for my mother. The other girls' 
screams joined with mine. Behind us I could hear 
the shouts and cries of our party. I thought I heard 
my mother's voice among them. Then the shouts 
died away in the distance. Soon I lost consciousness. 

When I came to I was lying on the ground, with 
the other girls who had been stolen. The Knrds had 
dismounted. Some were busy making camp, while 
others were in groups amusing themselves with such 
of the girls as were not exhausted. Musa Bey was 
absent. 

My clothes were torn and my body ached from 
the jolting of the horse. My shoes and stockings 
were off when the Kurds came down upon us, so my 



THE CRUEL SMILE OF KEMAL EFFENDI 83 

feet were bare. For a long time I lay quietly, fear- 
ing to move lest I attract attention and suffer as 
some of the girls already were suffering. When I 
could look around I saw that among the girls were 
several whom I had known, and some I recognized as 
young married women. Some I knew were mothers 
who had left babies behind. 

On the ground near me was quite a little girl, 
Maritza, whose mother had been killed by the zaptiehs 
just after we left Tchemesh-Gedzak. She had car- 
ried a baby brother in her arms during all the long 
walk of the first day on the road. She was weeping 
silently. I crawled over to her. 

" When they picked me up I was holding little 
Marcar," she sobbed. "The Kurds tore him out of 
my arms and threw him out on the ground. It killed 
him. I can't see anything else but his little body 
when it fell." 

It was several hours before Musa Bey came back. 
A party of Turks on horseback rode up with him. 
They came from the West where there were many 
little villages along the river banks, some of them the 
homes of rich Moslems. 

When they dismounted, Musa Bey began to exhibit 
the girls he had stolen to the Turks. Some of the 
Turks, I could tell, were wealthy farmers. Others 
seemed to be rich beys or aghas (influential citizens). 
Musa Bey made us all stand up. Those who didn't 



84 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

obey him quick enough he struck with his whip. 
When I got up of! the ground he caught me by the 
shoulder and threw me down again. " You lie still," 
he said. I saw that he did the same thing to two 
or three other girls. 

The Turks brutally examined the girls Musa Bey 
showed them, and began to pick them out. Those 
who were farmers chose the older ones, who seemed 
stronger than the rest. The others wanted the pret- 
tiest of the girls, and argued among themselves over 
a choice. 

The farmers wanted the girls to work as slaves in 
the field. The others wanted girls for a different 
purpose — for their harems or as ' household slaves, 
or for the concubine markets of Smyrna and Con- 
stantinople. Musa Bey demanded ten medjidiehs, or 
about eight dollars, American money, apiece. I 
thought, as I lay trembling on the ground, what a 
little bit of money that was for a Christian soul. 

Little Maritza, who stood close to me, was taken by 
a Turk who seemed to be very old. Another man 
wanted her, but the old one offered Musa Bey four 
medjidiehs more, and the other turned away to pick 
out another girl. The Turk who bought Maritza 
was afraid to take her away on his horse, so he bar- 
gained with Musa Bey until he had promised two 
extra medjidiehs if a Kurd would carry her to his 
house. Musa Bey gave an order and a Kurd climbed 



THE CRUEL SMILE OF KEMAL EFFENDI 85 

onto his horse, lifted Maritza in front of him and 
rode away by the side of the man who had bought 
her. She did not cry any more, but just held her 
hands in front of her eyes. 

After a while all the girls were gone but me and 
the few others whom Musa Bey had not offered for 
sale. The ones who were bought by the farmers 
were destined to work in the fields, and they were 
the most fortunate, for sometimes the Turkish farmer 
is kind and gentle. Those who were bought for the 
harem faced the untold heartache of the girl to whom 
some things are worse than death. 

When the last of the Turks had gone with their 
human property, Musa Bey spoke to his followers 
and some of them came toward us. We thought we 
had been reserved for Musa Bey himself, and we 
began to scream and plead. They picked us up 
despite our cries and mounted horses with us. Musa 
Bey leaped onto his horse and we were again carried 
away, with Musa Bey leading. 

I begged the Kurd who carried me to tell me where 
we were going. He would not answer. We had rid- 
den for two hours, until late in the afternoon, when 
we came to the outskirts of a village. We rode into 
the yard of a large stone house surrounded by a 
crumbling stone wall. It was a very ancient house, 
and before we had stopped in the courtyard I recog- 
nized it from a description in our school books, as 



86 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

a castle which had been built by the Saracens, and 
restored a hundred years ago by a rich Turk, who 
was a favorite of the Sultan who then reigned. 

I remembered, as the Kurds lifted us down from 
their horses, that the castle was now the home of 
Kemal Eflendi, a member of the Committee of Union 
and Progress, the powerful organization of the Young 
Turks. He was reputed throughout our district as 
being very bitter toward Christians, and there were 
many stories told in our country of Christian girls 
who had been stolen from their homes and taken to 
him, never to be heard from again. 

Only a part of the castle had been repaired so it 
might be lived in, and it was toward this part of the 
building the Kurds took us when they had dis- 
mounted. I tried to plead with the Kurd who had 
me, but he shook me roughly. We were led into a 
small room. There were servants, both men and 
women, in this room, and they began to talk about 
us and examine us. Musa Bey drove them to tell 
their master he had arrived. 

In a little while Kemal EfTendi entered. He was 
very tall and middle aged. His eyes made me tremble 
when they looked at me. I could only shudder as I 
remembered the things that were said of him. 

When Kemal EfTendi had looked at all of us for 
minutes that seemed torturing hours he seemed satis- 
fied. He spoke to Musa Bey and the Kurds went out, 



THE CRUEL SMILE OF KEMAL EFFENDI 87 

followed by him. I do not know how much Musa Bey 
was paid for us. 

Women came into the room and tried to be kind 
to us. One of them put her arms around me and 
asked me to not weep. She told me I was very for- 
tunate in falling into such good hands as Kemal 
Effendi. " He will be gentle to you. You must 
obey him and be affectionate and he will treat you as 
he does his wife. He will not be cruel unless you are 
disobedient," the woman said. I do not know what 
was her position in the house, but I think she was a 
servant who had been a concubine when she was 
younger. 

Until then I had tried to keep myself from think- 
ing that I had lost my mother and sisters and 
brothers. What the woman told us was to happen to 
us in the house of Kemal took away my hopes of 
ever seeing them again. I told her I would kill my- 
self if I could not go back to my relatives. 

It was late in the evening before Kemal Effendi 
summoned us. He had eaten and seemed to be gra- 
cious. One of the girls, who had been a bride, threw 
herself on the floor before him, weeping and begging 
him to set us free. Kemal Effendi lost his good 
humor at once. He called a man servant and told 
him to take the girl away. " Shut her up till she 
learns when to weep and when to laugh," he ordered. 
The man carried the girl out screaming. 



88 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

Kemal then asked us about our families, how old 
we were, and if we would renounce our religion and 
say the Mohammedan oath. One girl, whose name I 
do not know, but whom I had often seen in our Sun- 
day school at Tchemesh-Gedzak was not brave enough 
to refuse. The Kurds had treated her cruelly, and the 
one who had carried her away had beaten her when 
she cried. She moaned, " Yes, yes, God has deserted 
me. I will be true to Mohammed. Please don't beat 
me any more." 

When she had said this Kemal smiled and put his 
hand on her head. " You are wise. You will not be 
punished if you continue so." 

The second girl would not forsake Christ. " You 
may kill me if you wish," she said, " and then 
I will go to Jesus Christ." As soon as she had said 
this a man servant dragged her out of the room. I 
looked at Kemal Effendi, but he was still smiling, 
as soft and smoothly as if he could not be otherwise 
than very gentle. I could see that he was more cruel 
even than people had said of him. 

When Kemal Effendi spoke to me his voice was 
very soft. I can still remember it made me feel as if 
some wild animal's tongue was caressing my face. 

" And you, my girl," he said, " are you to be wise 
or foolish?" 

" God save me," I whispered to myself again, and 
then something seemed .to whisper back. I heard 



THE CRUEL SMILE OF KEMAL EFFENDI 89 

myself saying, without thinking of the words, " I will 
try to be as you wish." 

" That is very good. You will be happy," Kemal 
replied. " You will acknowledge Allah as God and 
Mohammed as his prophet? Then I will be kind to 
you." 

" I will do that, Eff endi, and I will be obedient, if 
you will save my family also," I said. 

"And if I do not?" Kemal asked. 

"Then I will die," I replied. 

The Effendi looked at me a long time. Then he 
asked me to tell him of my family. I told him of my 
mother, my sister, Lusanne, and of my other sisters 
and brothers. He made me stand close to him. He 
put his hands on me. I stood very straight and 
looked into his face. I promised that if he would 
take my mother and sisters and brothers also I would 
not only renounce my religion, but obey him in all 
things. And for each thing I promised I whispered 
to myself, " Please, God, forgive me." But I could 
think of no other way. I was afraid that even now, 
perhaps, my mother, brothers and sisters were being 
murdered. It seemed as if my body and soul were 
such little things to give for them. 

Kemal kept me with him more than an hour, I 
think. Each time he tried to touch me I shrank 
away from him. It amused him, for he would laugh 
and clap his hands, as if very pleased. " I will die 



90 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

first," I said each time, " unless you save my 
family." 

I had begun to lose hope; to think Kemal was but 
playing with me. I could hardly keep my tears back, 
yet I did not want to weep for I knew he would be 
displeased. Then, suddenly, he appeared to have 
made up his mind. He arose and looked down at me. 

" Very well. The bargain is made. I will protect 
your relatives. I prefer a willing woman to a sulky 
one. We will go to-morrow and bring them." 

I would have been happy, even in my sacrifice, had 
it not been that Kemal EfTendi smiled as he said this 
— that cruel, wicked smile. I would have believed 
in him if he had not smiled. But I felt as plain as 
if it were spoken to me that behind that smile was 
some wicked thought. 

I begged him to go with me then to bring my people 
before it was too late. He said it would not be too 
late in the morning; that he would go with me after 
sunrise; that I need have no further fears. When 
he left the room the woman who had spoken to me 
earlier came in to me. She took me into the harem- 
lik, or women's quarters, where there were many other 
women. 

I think the harem women would have been sorry 
for me had they dared. They tried to cheer me. 
They asked much about our religion, and why Ar- 
menians would die rather than adopt the religion of 



THE CRUEL SMILE OF KEMAL EFFENDI 9 1 

the Turks. I could not talk to them, because I could 
think only of the morning — whether I would be in 
time — and wonder what could be behind that smile 
of the EfTendi's. 

They put me in a small room, hardly as large as 
an American closet. They told me an Imam would 
come the next day to take my oath. 

They did not know the Effendi had promised to 
save my relatives and bring them to the house. 

I had not been alone in my room very long when 
a pretty odalik, a young slave girl, slipped silently 
through the curtained door and took my hand in hers. 
She was a Syrian, she told me, whose father had 
sold her when she was very young. She had been 
sent from Smyrna to the house of Kemal. She was 
the favorite slave of the Effendi. She wanted to tell 
me that if I needed some one to confide in when her 
master had made me his slave, too, I could trust her. 
She said she was supposed to have become Moham- 
medan, but that secretly she was still Christian. She 
did not know many prayers she explained, for she 
was so young when her father had been compelled 
to sell her. She wanted me to teach her new ones. 

It was so comforting to have some one to whom I 
could talk through the long hours of waiting until 
sunrise. I told the little odalik I had promised to 
be a Moslem only to save my mother and sisters and 
brothers. I told her what Kemal had promised, 



92 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

how he had smiled and how I feared something I could 
not explain. 

" When he smiles he does not mean what he says," 
the girl said, sadly. " Often when he is displeased 
with me he smiles and pets me. Soon afterwards I am 
whipped. When the Kurd, Musa Bey, who brought 
you, came to tell the Eflendi he had stolen some girls 
and wished to sell the prettiest to him, the Eflendi 
smiled and said, ' Be good to the best appearing 
ones, and bring them here/ I would not trust him 
to keep his promise." 

Early in the morning the Eflendi sent for me and 
asked me to describe my relatives. I told him it 
would be impossible for him to find them in so large 
a party. He agreed I should go with him and we 
set out, he riding his horse while I walked beside him. 
I tried to convince him I was contented with the bar- 
gain we had made — even that I was glad of the op- 
portunity to have his protection. Yet I knew that 
behind his smile was his resolve to have my family 
killed as soon as he had brought about my " con- 
version " and had obtained the willing sacrifice he 
desired. 

Kemal knew the party in which my family was 
would be taken across the river at the fording place 
to the north. We went in that direction, but they 
had not yet arrived and we turned back to meet them. 

When we came close to the river bank, which was 



THE CRUEL SMILE OF KEMAL EFFENDI 93 

high and cliff-like, I looked down at the water and 
saw it was running red with blood, with here and 
there a body floating on the surface. I screamed 
when I saw this, and sank to the ground. I shut 
my eyes, yet I seemed to see what had happened — 
a company of Armenians taken to the river bank and 
massacred, cut with knives and sabres before they 
were thrown into the river, else they would not have 
stained the river for many miles. 

The Effendi reproached me. 

"Christians are learning their God cannot save 
their blood. It is what they deserve. Why should 
you weep now, my little one, when already you have 
decided to give your faith to Islam ? " I could not 
look at him, but somehow I could feel that in his eyes 
there would be the gleam of that terrible smile. 

I gathered strength and replied firmly : " I am not 
used to blood, Effendi." 

We went on, close by the river, looking for the 
vanguard of my people who would come from the 
south. The river banks reached higher, and the river 
narrowed until it was almost a solid red with the 
blood. Afterwards I learned seven hundred men and 
boys from Erzindjan had been convoyed to the river 
and killed by zaptiehs. The zaptiehs stabbed them 
one by one and then threw them into the river. And 
this river was a part of the Euphrates of the Bible, 
with its source in the Garden of Eden! 



94 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

Kemal rode close to the high banks. I walked at 
his side. Below me the river seemed to call me to 
security. If I went on I knew Kemal would only- 
feed false hopes by promising protection to my rela- 
tives he would soon tire of giving. And I would 
have to make the sacrifice he demanded in vain. I 
waited until we were at the very edge of the cliff. 
Then I jumped. I heard the curse of Kemal Ef- 
f endi as I struck the red water. When I came to the 
surface I saw him sitting on his horse at the top of 
the cliff, looking down at me. I was glad I could 
not tell if he were smiling. 

I had learned to swim when I was very young. 
Unconsciously I struck out for the opposite shore 
and reached it safely. The banks were not so high 
on that side. Soon I was free. It must have been 
that Kemal did not have a revolver or he would have 
shot me. I did not look back, but ran onto the plain. 
I did not know if Kemal would send searchers for 
me, so I hid in the sand, covering myself so Kurds 
or zaptiehs could not see me if they rode near, until 
I saw the long line of my people from Tchemesh- 
Gedzak approaching on the other side of the river. 

I remained through the rest of the day and night, 
while the refugees camped at the fording place. 
When they crossed the river the next morning I man- 
aged to get in among them during the confusion. My 
mother was so happy she could not speak for a long 



THE CRUEL SMILE OF KEMAL EFFENDI 95 

time. Kemal Eflendi had ridden up to them, she 
told me, and had demanded that the leader of the 
zaptiehs find my relatives and punish them for my 
escape. Mother bribed the soldiers and they told 
Kemal my relatives were not among the party. 

The party was given no opportunity to rest after 
the laborious fording of the river, but was made to 
push on toward Arabkir. Little Hovnan and Mar- 
diros, and Aruciag and Sarah, already were almost 
exhausted. Their little feet were torn and bleeding, 
and mother and Lusanne kept them wrapped in cloths. 
There were no more babies in the party, for just be- 
fore they forded the river the zaptiehs made the 
mothers of the youngest babies leave them behind. 
The mothers nursed them while they were waiting to 
be taken over the river and then laid them in little 
rows on the river bank and left them. 

The soldiers said Mohammedan women would come 
out from a nearby village to take the babies and care 
for them, but none came while we still could see the 
spot where they were left, and that was for several 
hours. Several of the mothers, when they realized 
the promise of the soldiers was just a ruse, jumped 
into the river to swim back. The soldiers shot them 
in the water. After that we were not allowed to go 
near the river, even to drink. 

Late that day we came to a khan, or travelers' rest 
house, such as are found along all the roads in Asia 



g6 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

Minor, maintained after an ancient custom of the 
Turks as stopping places for caravans. We were 
told we could rest there for the remainder of the day 
and night, but when we drew near the khan a party 
of soldiers came out and halted us. We could not 
go to the building, our guards were told, as it was 
occupied by travelers being taken north to Shabin 
Kara-Hissar, a large city in the district of Trebi- 
zond near the Black Sea. 

Soon we learned who these travelers were. They 
were a company of "turned " Armenians, as the 
Turks call Christians who have given up their re- 
ligion. The company was from Keban-Maden, a 
city thirty miles south. The company arrived at the 
khan that morning, having traveled twenty miles the 
day before. 

The zaptiehs who guarded our party and the sol- 
diers who had come from Keban-Maden with the 
others, soon became friends and talked earnestly with 
each other. They had forbidden us to go near the 
khan, and we wondered why the " turned " Christians 
were not to be seen. Presently a slim young girl 
crept out of the house and, unseen by the soldiers^ 
crawled along the ground until she came to the out- 
skirts of our camp. She was naked and her feet 
were cut and bruised. 

She was a bride, she said, who had " turned " with 
her young husband. The Mutassarif of Keban- 



THE CRUEL SMILE OF KEMAL EFFENDI 97 

Maden had promised all the Armenians in his city 
that their lives would be saved if they accepted Islam, 
the child-bride said, and more than four hundred of 
them, mostly the younger married people, agreed. 

Then they were told, she said, they would have to 
go to Shabin Kara-Hissar. As soon as they were 
outside the city the soldiers robbed them of every- 
thing worth taking. Then most of the soldiers re- 
turned to Keban-Maden so as not to miss the loot- 
ing there of the Armenian houses. The soldiers that 
remained tied the men in groups of five and made 
them march bound in this way. During their first 
night on the road, the bride said, the soldiers stripped 
all the women of their clothing and made them march 
after that naked. 

Terrible things happened during that night, the 
girl said. Nearly all the women were outraged, and 
when husbands who were still tied together, and were 
helpless to interfere while they looked on, cried out 
about it, the soldiers killed them. The little bride 
had come over to us to ask if some of us would not 
give her a piece of clothing to cover her body. Many 
of our women offered her underskirts and other gar- 
ments, and she crawled back to the khan with as many 
as she could carry, for herself and other women. 

They did not know what was going to happen to 
them. They did not believe the soldiers who said 
they would be permitted to live at Shabin Kara- 



98 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

Hissar in peace. Their guards already were grum- 
bling, she said, at having to take such a long march 
with them just because they had " turned." 

That night a dozen or more of our youngest girls, 
from eight to ten years old, were stolen by the sol- 
diers and taken to the khan. We didn't know what 
became of them, but we feared they were taken to be 
sold to Mohammedan families, or to rich Turks. 
Mother slept that night, she was so worn out, but 
Lusanne and I took turns keeping guard over our 
sisters and brothers, keeping them covered with dirt 
and bits of clothing, so the soldiers as they prowled 
among us, would not see them. 

Before daylight the Armenians in the khan were 
taken away. We had not been upon the road next 
day but a few hours when we came upon a long row 
of bodies along the roadside, we recognized them as 
the men of the party of " turned " Armenians. A 
little farther on we came to a well, but we found 
it choked with the naked corpses of the rest of the 
party — the women. The zaptiehs had killed all the 
party, and to prevent Armenians deported along that 
road later, from using the water, had thrown the 
bodies of the women into it. 



CHAPTER V 

THE WAYS OF THE ZAPTIEHS 

While we stood, in groups, looking with horror 
into the well, I suddenly heard these words, spoken by 
a woman standing near me: 

" God has gone mad ; we are deserted ! " 

I turned and saw it was the wife of Badvelli Mar- 
kar, a pastor who had been our neighbor in Tchemesh- 
Gedzak. When the men of our city were massacred 
the Badvelli's wife was left to care for an aged 
mother, who was then ill in bed with typhoid fever, 
and three children — a baby, a little girl of three, 
and a boy who was five. She had begged the Turks 
to let her remain in her home to care for her mother, 
but they refused. They made the aged woman leave 
her bed and take to the road with the rest of us. She 
died the first day. 

During the first days we were on the road the Bad* 
velli's wife was very courageous. Then her little boy 
died. The guards had compelled her to leave her 
baby at the river crossing and now her little girl, the 
last of her children, was ill in her arms. When we 
passed the bodies of the Armenians from the khan, 

99 



IOO RAVISHED ARMENIA 

laid along the road, the Badvelli's wife suddenly lost 
her mind. 

" God has gone mad, I tell you — mad — mad — 
mad!" 

This time she shrieked it aloud and ran in among 
the others in our company, crying the terrible thing 
as she went. A woman tried to stop her, to take the 
little girl out of her arms, but she fought fiercely 
and held on to the child. 

I have heard how sometimes a sickness like the 
plague will spread from one person to another with 
fatal quickness. That was how the madness of the 
Badvelli's wife spread through our party. It seemed 
hardly more than a minute before the awful cry was 
taken up by scores, even hundreds, of women whose 
minds already were shaken by their inability to un- 
derstand why they should be made to suffer the things 
they had to endure at the hands of the Turks. 

It was the mothers of young children, mostly, who 
gave in to the madness. Some of these threw their 
children on the ground and ran, screaming, out of 
the line and into the desert. Others ran wild with 
their children hanging to their arms. Their relatives 
tried to subdue them, but were powerless. 

I think there were more than 200 women whose 
minds gave way under this sudden impulse, stirred by 
the crazed widow of the pastor. 

The zaptiehs who were in charge of us could not 



THE WAYS OF THE ZAPTIEHS IOI 

understand at first. They thought there was a re- 
volt. They charged in among us, swinging their 
swords and guns right and left, even shooting point 
blank. Many were killed or wounded hopelessly be- 
fore the zaptiehs understood. Then the guards were 
greatly amused, and laughed. " See," they said; 
" that is what your God is — ■ He is .crazy." We 
could only bow our heads and submit to the taunt. 
Some of the women recovered their senses and were 
very sorry. Those who remained crazed the zap- 
tiehs turned onto the plains to starve to death. They 
would not kill an insane person, as it is against their 
religion. 

We had been told we were to go to Arabkir, but 
soon after leaving the khan we changed our direc- 
tion. It was apparent we were headed in the direc- 
tion of Hassan-Chelebi, a small city south of Arab- 
kir. None of our guards would give us any definite 
information. 

The zaptiehs made us march in a narrow line, but 
one or two families abreast. The line of weary 
stragglers stretched out as far as I could see, both 
ahead and behind. We had but little water, as the 
zaptiehs would not allow us to go near springs or 
streams, but compelled us to purchase water from 
the farmer Kurds who came out from villages along 
the way. The villagers demanded sometimes a lira 
(nearly $5.) a cup for water, and always the boys 



102 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

we sent out to buy it were sure to receive a beating 
as well as the water. We who had money with us 
had to share with those who had none. Sometimes 
the villagers would sell the water, collect the money, 
and then tip over the cups. 

After we were on the road a week we were treated 
even more cruelly than during the first few days. 
The old women, and those who were too ill to keep 
on, were killed, one by one. The soldiers said they 
could not bother with them. When children lagged 
behind, or got out of the line to rest, the zaptiehs 
would lift them on their bayonets and toss them 
away — sometimes trying to catch them again as they 
fell, on their bayonet points. Mothers who saw their 
young ones killed in this way for the sport of our 
guards could not protest. We had learned that any 
sort of a protest was suicide. They had to watch 
and wring their hands, or hold their eyes shut while 
the children died. 

Our family had been especially fortunate because 
none of our little ones became ill. Although Hovnan 
was only six years old, he seemed to realize what was 
going on. My youngest aunt, Hagenoush, who was 
with us, was carried off from the road by a zaptieh, 
who beat her terribly when she tried to resist him. 
When he had outraged her he buried his knife in her 
breast and drove her back to us screaming with the 
fright and pain. I think I was never so discouraged 



THE WAYS OF THE ZAPTIEHS 103 

as when we had treated Hagenoush and eased her pain. 

News of the massacres and deportations had not 
yet reached all the villages we passed, as the road 
was little traveled. We came upon one settlement 
of Armenians where the women were at their wash 
tubs, in the public washing place, only partly clothed, 
as is the way in country villages in Turkey. Our 
guards surrounded the women at once and drove 
them, just as they were, into our party. Then they 
gathered the men, who did not know why they were 
molested until we told them. We rested on the road 
while the soldiers looted all the houses in that vil- 
lage. Then they set fire to it. 

We were now in a country where there were many 
Turkish villages, as well as settlements of Kurds. 
We camped at night in a great circle, with the 
younger girls distributed for protection inside the 
circle as widely as possible. Each day young women 
were carried away to be sold to Turks who lived 
near by, and at night the zaptiehs selected the most 
attractive women and outraged them. 

The night after the Armenian village had been 
surprised we had hardly more than made our camp 
when the captain of the soldiers ordered the men who 
had been taken from the village during the day to 
come before him, in a tent which had been pitched 
a little way off. The captain wanted their names, 
the soldiers explained. We had hoped these men 



104 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

would remain with us. There were seventy-two of 
them, and we felt much safer and encouraged with 
them among us. But we knew what the summons 
meant. The men knew, too, and so did their women- 
folk. 

Each man said good-by to his wife, or daughters, 
or mother, and other relatives who had been gath- 
ered in at the village. The captain's tent was just 
a white speck in the moonlight. Around it we made 
out the figures of soldiers and zaptiehs. The women 
clung to the men as long as they dared, then the 
men marched out in a little company. Our guards 
would not allow us to follow. We watched, hoping 
against hope. 

Soon we saw a commotion. Screams echoed across 
to us. Figures ran out into the desert, with other 
figures in pursuit. Only the pursuers would return. 
Then it was quiet. The men were all dead. 

That was the first time the officers had raised a 
tent. We wondered at their doing this, as usually 
they slept in the open after their nightly orgies with 
our girls. After that we shuddered more than ever 
whenever we saw the soldiers put up a tent for the 
night. 

After the massacre of the men, the soldiers who 
had participated came into the camp and, with those 
which had remained guarding us, went among us 
selecting women whose husbands had belonged to the 



THE WAYS OF THE ZAPTIEHS IO5 

more prosperous class and ordering them to go to 
the tent. The captain wished to question them, the 
soldiers said. They summoned my mother and many 
women who had been our neighbors or friends, until 
more than two hundred women whose husbands had 
been rich or well-to-do were gathered. With my 
mother my Aunt Mariam, whose husband had been a 
banker, was taken. 

As soon as the women had arrived at the tent the 
captain told them they were summoned to give up the 
money they had brought with them, " for safe keep- 
ing from the Kurds," he said. The women knew 
their money would never be returned to them and 
that they would suffer terribly without it. They re- 
fused to surrender it, saying they had none. Then 
the zaptiehs fell upon them. They searched them all, 
first tearing off all their clothes. 

One woman, who was the sister of the rich man, 
Garabed Tufenkjian, of Sivas, and who had been 
visiting in our city when the deportations began, was 
so mercilessly beaten she confessed at last that she had 
concealed some money in her person. She begged 
the soldiers to cease beating her that she might give it 
them. The soldiers shouted aloud with glee at this 
confession and recovered the money themselves, cut- 
ting her cruelly with their knives to make sure they 
had missed none. 

The soldiers then searched each woman in this way. 



106 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

My Aunt Mariam was to become a mother. When 
the soldiers saw this they threw hei to the ground 
and ripped her open with their bayonets, thinking, 
in their ignorant way, she had hidden a great amount 
of money. They were so disappointed they fell upon 
the other women with renewed energy. 

Of the two hundred or more who were subjected 
to this treatment, only a little group survived. When 
they crawled back into the camp and into the arms 
of their relatives they had screamed so much they 
could not talk — they had lost their voices. My poor 
mother had given up all the money she had about 
her, but had not admitted that others of her family 
had more. She was bleeding from many cuts and 
bruises when she reached us, and fainted as soon as 
she saw Lusanne and me running to her. We car- 
ried her into the camp and used the last of our drink- 
ing water, which we had treasured from the day be- 
fore, to bathe her wounds. 

When the soldiers and zaptiehs had divided the 
money which they had taken, they came in among us 
again to pick out young women to take to the of- 
ficers' tent. The moonlight was so bright none of 
us could conceal ourselves. Lusanne was sitting with 
the children, comforting them, while I had taken my 
turn at attending mother's wounds. A zaptieh caught 
her by the hair and pulled her to her feet. 

" Spare me, my mother is dying — spare me ! " 



THE WAYS OF THE ZAPTIEHS I07 

Lusanne cried, but the zaptieh was merciless. He 
dragged her along. I could not hold myself. I ran 
to Lusanne and caught hold of her, pleading with the 
zaptieh to release her. Lusanne resisted, too, and the 
zaptieh became enraged. With an oath he drew his 
knife and buried it in Lusanne's breast. The blade, 
as it fell, passed so close to me it cut the skin on my 
cheek, leaving the scar which I still have. Lusanne 
died in my arms. The zaptieh turned his attention 
to another girl he had noticed. 

Mother had not seen — she was still too exhausted 
from her own sufferings. Aruciag and Hovnan, my 
little brother and sister, saw it all, however, and had 
run to where I stood dazed, with Lusanne's limp 
body in my arms. I laid her on the ground and won- 
dered how I could tell mother. 

A woman who had been standing near took my 
place at mother's side. I led the little ones away and 
asked another woman to keep them with her, then I 
returned to my sister's body. I could not make my- 
self believe it. I counted on my ringers — father, 
mother, Paul, Lusanne, Aruciag, Sarah, Mardiros, 
Hovnan and my two aunts. With me that made 
eleven of us — eleven in our family. Then I counted 
father, Paul, Aunt Mariam, and now Lusanne — four 
already gone ! 

I cried over Lusanne a long time. Then I realized 
I must do something. I was afraid a sudden shock 



108 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

might kill mother, so I must have time, I knew, to 
prepare her. With the help of some other women I 
carried Lusanne to the side of the camp and with 
our hands we dug her grave — just a shallow hole in 
the sand. I made a little cross from bits of wood we 
found after a long search, and laid it in her hands. 

When morning came mother had gathered her 
strength, with a tremendous effort, and was able to 
stand and walk. Some strong young women, offered 
to help carry her, even all day if necessary, if she 
could not walk. Mother insisted upon walking some 
of the time, though, leaning upon my shoulder. 

She asked for Lusanne as soon as we began prepa- 
ration to take up the day's march. I tried to make 
her believe Lusanne was further back in the com- 
pany — " helping a sick lady," I said. But mother 
read my eyes — she knew I was trying to deceive her. 

" Don't be afraid, little Aurora," she said to me, 
oh, so very gently ; " don't be afraid to tell me what- 
ever it is — have they stolen her ? " 

" They tried to take her," I said, " but — " 

I stopped. Mother helped me again. " Did she 
die? Did they kill her? If they did it was far bet- 
ter, my Aurora." 

Then I could tell her. " They killed her — very 
quickly — her last words were that God was good to 
set her free." 

We saw the zaptieh who killed Lusanne, during the 



THE WAYS OF THE ZAPTIEFS IO9 

day, and little Aruciag recognized him. "There is 
the man who killed my sister," she cried. Mother 
put her hands over her eyes and would not look at 
him. 

We all were in great fear of what might happen 
to us at Hassan-Chelebi. Some of the young women 
who had been taken during the night to the tent of 
the officers reported that the officers had told them 
during the orgie that some great beys were coming 
from Sivas to meet us at Hassan-Chelebi, and that 
something was to be done about us there. We were 
afraid that meant that all our girls were to be stolen. 

When the city loomed up before us our young 
women began to tremble with dread, and many of 
them fell down, unable to walk, so great was their 
anguish. The soldiers whipped them up, though, and 
we were guided into the center of the town. Hun- 
dreds of our women were wholly nude, especially 
those who had been stripped and beaten when the 
soldiers robbed them. The zaptiehs would not allow 
them to cover themselves, seeming to take an espe- 
cial delight in watching that those who were without 
clothes did not obtain garments from others. These 
poor women were compelled to walk through the 
streets of Hassan-Chelebi with their heads bowed with 
shame, while the Turkish residents jeered at them 
from windows and the roadside. 

At the square the Turkish officials from Sivas came 



110 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

out to look at us. Among them were Muamer Pasha, 
the cruel governor of Sivas; Mahir Effendi, his aide 
de camp; Tcherkess Kior Kassim, his chief hangman, 
who, we afterward learned, had superintended the 
massacre of 6,000 Armenian Christians at Tchamli- 
Bel gorge, near Sivas; a captain of zaptiehs and a 
Hakim, or judge. Two of these officials were noted 
throughout Armenia — Muamer Pasha and his hang- 
man, for their characteristic cruelties toward Chris- 
tians. 

After the officials had walked among us, closely 
surrounded by soldiers so that none could approach 
them, the Mudir, or under-mayor of the city, came 
with the police to get all boys over eight years of 
age. The police said the mayor had provided a school 
for them in a monastery, where they would be kept 
until their mothers had been permanently located 
somewhere and could send for them. Of course, we 
knew this was a false reason. 

I greatly feared for Mardiros, but he was so small 
they did not take him. There must have been 500 
boys with us who were between eight and fifteen, and 
these all were gathered. 

The little fellows were taken to the mayor's palace. 
Then soldiers marched them away, all the little ones 
crying and screaming. We heard the cries a long 
time. When we arived at Arabkir we were told by 



THE WAYS OF THE ZAPTIEHS III 

other refugees there that all the boys were killed as 
soon as they had crossed the hills into the valley just 
outside Hassan-Chelebi. The soldiers tied them in 
groups of ten and fifteen and then slew them with 
swords and bayonets. Refugees passing that way 
from Sivas saw their bodies on the road. 

Before we left Hassan-Chelebi, Tcherkess Kior 
Kassim, the hangman, came among us, with a com- 
pany of zaptiehs and picked out twelve very young 
girls — most of them between eight and twelve years 
old. The hangman was going soon to Constantinople, 
the soldiers said, and wanted young girls to sell to 
rich Turks of powerful families, among whom it is 
the custom to buy pretty girls of this age, whenever 
possible, and keep them in their harems until they 
mature. They are raised as Mohammedans and are 
later given to sons of their owners, or to powerful 
friends. 

Just outside Hassan-Chelebi, which we left in the 
afternoon, we were joined by a party of 3,000 refugees 
from Sivas. They, too, were on their way to Arab- 
kir, and had encamped outside the city to wait for us. 
Among them was a company of twenty Sisters of 
Grace. These dear Sisters, several of whom were 
Europeans, had been summoned at midnight from 
their beds by the Kaimakam, or under-governor. 
When the Turkish soldiers went for them they were 



112 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

disrobed, sleeping. The soldiers would not permit 
them to dress, but took them as they were, barefooted 
and in their nightgowns. 

They had managed, during the long days out of 
Sivas, to borrow other garments, but none had shoes 
and their feet were torn and bleeding. They were 
very delicate and gentle, and all had received their 
education in American or European schools. They 
had demanded exemption from the deportation under 
certain concessions made their convent by the Sultan, 
but the soldiers ignored their pleas. 

Instead of arousing some slight respect upon the 
part of their guards because of their holy station, 
these Sisters had been subjected to the worst possible 
treatment. They told us that every night after their 
party left Sivas the soldiers and zaptiehs took them 
away from the party and violated them. They begged 
for death, but even this was refused them. Two of 
them, Sister S^rah and Sister Esther, who had come 
from America, had killed themselves. They had only 
their hands — no other weapons, and the torture and 
agonies they endured while taking their own lives 
were terrible. 

The refugees from Sivas included the men. There 
were more than 25,000 Armenians in that city, and all 
were notified they were to be taken away. The party 
which joined ours was the first to be sent out. They 
had passed many groups of corpses along the. road, 



THE WAYS OF THE ZAPTIEHS 113 

they reported, the reminder of deportations from other 
cities. 

When we arrived at Arabkir we were ordered to 
encamp at the edge of the city. Parties of exiles 
from many villages between Arabkir and Sivas al- 
ready were there. Some of them still had their men 
and boys with them, others told us how their men had 
been killed along the route. 

The Armenians of Arabkir itself were awaiting 
deportation, herded in a party of 8,000 or more, near 
where we halted. They had been waiting five days, 
and did not know what had happened to their homes 
in the city. 

A special official came from Sivas to take charge 
of the deportations at Arabkir. With him came a 
company of zaptiehs. Halil Bey, a great military 
leader, with his staff, also was there, on his way to 
Constantinople where he was to take command of an 
army. 

In the center of the city there was a large house 
which had been used by the prosperous Armenian 
shops. On the upper floors were large rooms which 
had been gathering places. Already this house had 
come to be known as the Kasab-Khana — the " butcher- 
house " — for here the leading men of the city had 
been assembled and slain. 

Shortly after the special official's arrival sol- 
diers summoned all the men still with the Sivas ex- 



114 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

iles, to a meeting with him on the Kasab-Khana. 
The men feared to go, but were told there would be 
no more cruelties now that high authority was rep- 
resented. The men went, two thousand of them, and 
were killed as soon as they reached the Kasab-Khana. 
Soldiers were in hiding on the lower floors and as 
the men gathered in the upper rooms the doors were 
closed and the soldiers went about the slaughter. 
Men leaped out of the windows as fast as they could, 
but soldiers caught them on their bayonets. 

The bodies were thrown out of the house later in 
the day. The next morning they were still piled in 
the streets when the official called for the girls 
who had been attending the Christian colleges and 
schools at Sivas, and the Mission at Kotcheseur, an 
Armenian town near Sivas. There were two hun- 
dred of these girls, all of them members of the better 
families, and all between fifteen and twenty years old. 
The soldiers said the official had arranged for them 
to be sent under the care of missionaries to a school 
near the coast, where they would be protected. 

The girls were summoned to the Kasab-Khana. It 
was then we learned, for the first time, what had hap- 
pened to the men the day before. They stood in line 
but a few yards from the great piles of the bodies 
still lying in the street. 

The official received them in a room on the up- 
per floor of the house, which still bore the stains of 



THE WAYS OF THE ZAPTIEHS 115 

blood on the walls and floors. He asked them to 
renounce Christ and accept Allah. Only a few agreed 
- — these were taken away, where, I do not know. 
The rest were left in the room by the official and 
his staff. As soon as the officers had left the building 
the soldiers poured into the room, sharing the girls 
among them. All day and night soldiers went into 
and came out of the house. Nearly all the girls died. 
Those who were alive when the soldiers were weary 
were sent away under an escort of zaptiehs. 



CHAPTER VI 

RECRUITING FOR THE HAREMS OF CONSTANTINOPLE 

The exiles from my city were kept in a camp out- 
side Arabkir. On the third day the hills around us 
suddenly grew white with the figures of Aghja Daghi 
Kurds, They waited until nightfall then they rode 
down among us. There were hundreds of them, and 
when they were weary of searching the women for 
money, they began to gather up girls and young 
women. 

I tried to conceal myself when a little party of the 
Kurds came near. But I was too late. They took 
me away, with a dozen other girls and young wives 
this band had caught. They carried us on their horses 
across the valley, over the hills and into the desert 
beyond. There they stripped us of what clothes still 
were on our bodies. With their long sticks they sub- 
dued the girls who were screaming, or who resisted 
them — beat them until their flesh was purple with 
flowing blood. My own heart was too full — think- 
ing of my poor, wounded mother. I could not cry. 
I was not even strong enough to fight them when they 
began to take the awful toll which the Turks and 
Kurds take from their women captives. 

116 



RECRUITING FOR HAREMS OF CONSTANTINOPLE II7 

When the Kurds were tired of mistreating us they 
hobbled us, still naked, to their horses. Each girl, 
with her hands tied behind her back, was tied by the 
feet to the end of a rope fastened around a horse's 
neck. Thus they left us — neither we nor the horses 
could escape. 

I have often wondered since I came to America, 
where life is so different from that of my country, 
if any of the good people whom I meet could imagine 
the sufferings of that night while I lay in the moon- 
light, my hands fastened and my feet haltered to the 
restless animal. 

There seems to be so little of tragedy in this coun- 
try — so little of real suffering. I can hardly believe 
yet, though I have been free so many months now, 
that there is a land where there is no punishment for 
believing in God. 

When the dawn broke the Kurds came out to untie 
their horses. It is characteristic of even the fiercest 
Kurds that their captives always are fed. The Kurds 
will rob and terribly mistreat their victims, especially 
the women of the Christians, but they will not steal 
their food. When their captives have no food they 
will even share with them. The Kurd is more of a 
child than the Turk, and nearly all the wickedness 
of these bandits of the desert is inspired by their 
Turkish masters. 

When we had eaten of the bread and drank the 



Il8 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

water they brought for us, the Kurds lifted us upon 
their horses and galloped toward the north. There 
were more girls than Kurds, and we were shifted 
frequently that double burdens might be shared among 
the horses. 

We did not know where we were being taken, nor 
to what. After many hours of riding I was shifted 
to the care of a Kurd who — either because he was 
kinder or liked to talk — answered my pleading 
questions. He told me a great Pasha was at Egin, 
a city to the north, who had come down from Con- 
stantinople especially to take an interest in Armenian 
girls. This Pasha, the Kurd said, even paid money 
to have Christian girls who were healthy and pleasing 
brought before him. 

Egin is on the banks of the Kara Su. From Er- 
zindjan, Shabin Kara-Hissar and Niksar, large north- 
ern cities, thousands of Armenians had been brought 
to Egin. Here special bands of soldiers had been 
stationed to superintend the massacres of these Chris- 
tians. All around the hills and plains outside the 
city huge piles of corpses were still uncovered. We 
passed long ditches which had been dug by convicts 
released from Turkish prisons for that purpose, and 
in which an attempt had been made to bury the bodies 
of the Armenians. But the convicts had been in such 
a hurry to get done the work for which they were to 
be given their liberty, that the legs and arms of men 



RECRUITING FOR HAREMS OF CONSTANTINOPLE II9 

and women still stuck out from the sand which had 
been scraped over them. 

There had been many rich Armenian families in 
Egin. It was the meeting place of the rich caravans 
from Samsoun, Trebizond and Marsovan, bound for 
Harpout and Diyarbekir. For many years the Turk- 
ish residents and the Armenians had been good neigh- 
bors. When the first orders for the deportation and 
massacres reached Egin the rich Armenian women ran 
to their Turkish friends, the wives of rich aghas and 
beys, and begged them for an intercession in their 
behalf. There was at that time an American mis- 
sionary at the hospital in Egin who had been an in- 
terpreter attached to the American Embassy at Con- 
stantinople. He procured permission from the Kaima- 
kam to appeal by the telegraph to the American Am- 
bassador, Mr. Morgenthau, for the Christian residents 
of the city. 

In the meantime the rich Armenian women gave all 
their jewels and household silver and other valuables 
to the wives of the Turkish officials, and in this way 
obtained promises that they would not be molested 
until word had come from Constantinople. The 
American Ambassador secured from Talaat Bey, the 
Minister of the Interior, and Enver Pasha, the Min- 
ister of War, permission for the Armenians of Egin 
to remain undisturbed in their homes. 

There was great rejoicing then among the Chris- 



120 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

tians of Egin. A few days later the first company 
of exiles from the villages to the west reached the city 
on their way to the south. They had walked for three 
days and had been cruelly mistreated by the zaptiehs 
guarding them. Their girls had been carried off and 
their young women had been the playthings of the 
soldiers. They were famished also for water and 
bread, and the Turks would give them none. 

The Armenians of Egin were heart-stricken at the 
condition of these exiles, but they feared to help them. 
The refugees were camped at night in the city square. 
During the night the zaptiehs and soldiers made free 
with the young women still among the exiles and their 
screams deepened the pity of the residents. In the 
morning the Armenian priest of the city could stand 
it no longer — he went into the square with bread and 
water and prayers. The Kaimakam had been watch- 
ing for just such an occurrence! 

He sent soldiers to bring the priest before him. 
He also sent for twenty of the principal Armenian 
business men and had them brought into the room. 
As soon as the Armenians arrived his soldiers set upon 
the priest and began to torture him, to pull out his 
hair and twist his fingers and toes with pincers, which 
is a favorite Turkish torture. The soldiers kept ask- 
ing him as they twisted their pincers : 

" Did you not advise them to resist ? Did you not 
take arms to them concealed in bread ? " 



RECRUITING FOR HAREMS OF CONSTANTINOPLE 121 

The priest screamed denials. The twenty men had 
been lined up at one side of the room. In his trickery 
the Kaimakam had stationed his soldiers at a dis- 
tance from the Armenians. When the torture of the 
priest continued and his screams died away into groans 
the Armenians could stand it no longer. They threw 
themselves upon the torturers — not to assault them, 
but to beg mercy for the holy man. Then the soldiers 
leaped upon them and killed them all. 

The Kaimakam reported to Constantinople that it 
was impossible longer to obey the Ministry's orders to 
allow the Armenians in Egin to remain — that they 
had revolted and attacked his soldiers and that he had 
been forced to kill twenty of them. Talaat Bey sent 
back the famous reply which now burns in the heart 
of every Armenian in the world — no matter where he 
or she is— for they all have heard of it. Talaat 
Bey's reply was: 

" Whatever you do with Christians is amusing/' 

After this reply from Talaat Bey, the Kaimakam 
issued a proclamation giving the Armenians of Egin 
just two hours to prepare for deportation. The 
women besieged the officers and said to them : " See, 
we have given our precious stones to your wives, and 
we have given them many liras to give to you. Your 
wives promised us protection, and we have done noth- 
ing to abuse your confidence. Our men did not at- 
tack your soldiers in violence." 



122 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

But the officers would only make light of them. 
" We would have gotten your jewels and your money 
anyway," they replied. 

In two hours they had assembled — all the Ar- 
menians in the city. The soldiers went among them 
and seized many of the young women. These they 
took to a Christian monastery just outside the city, 
where there were several other Armenian girls resid- 
ing as pupils. 

The Armenians had many donkeys and horse car- 
riages. The mayor had told them they might travel 
with these. The soldiers tied the women in bunches 
of five, wrapped them tightly with ropes, and threw 
one bunch in each cart. Then they drove away the 
donkeys and horses and forced the men to draw these 
carts in which their womenfolk were bound. The 
soldiers would not let husbands or brothers or sons 
talk to their womenfolk, no matter how loudly they 
cried as the carts were pulled along. 

An hour outside the city the soldiers killed the men. 
Then they untied the women and tormented them. 
After many hours they killed the women who sur- 
vived. 

The Kaimakam sent his officers to the monastery 
where the young women were imprisoned. They took 
with them Turkish doctors, who examined the cap- 
tives and selected the ones who were healthy and 



RECRUITING FOR HAREMS OF CONSTANTINOPLE 123 

strong. Of these, the Turks required all who were 
maidens to stand apart from those who were not. 
The brides and young wives then were told they would 
be sent to Constantinople, to be sold there either as 
concubines or as slaves to farmer Turks. The maid- 
ens were told they might save their lives if they would 
forswear their religion and accept Mohammed. Some 
of them were so discouraged they agreed. An Imam 
said the rek'ah with them, and they were sent away 
into the hopeless land — to be wives or worse. 

One maiden, the daughter of an Armenian leader 
who had been a deputy from that district to the 
Turkish Parliament, was especially pretty, and one 
of the officers wanted her for himself. He said to 
her: 

" Your father, your mother, your brother and your 
two sisters have been killed. Your aunts and your 
uncles and your grandfather were killed. I wish to 
save you from the suffering they went through, and 
the unknown fate that will befall these girls who are 
Mohammedan now, and the known fate which will 
befall those who have been stubborn. Now, be a good 
Turkish girl and you shall be my wife — I will make 
you, not a concubine, but a wife, and you will live 
happily." 

What the girl replied was so well remembered by 
the Turks who heard her that they told of it after- 



124 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

ward among themselves until it was known through 
all the district. She looked quietly into the face of the 
Turkish officer and said: 

" My father is not dead. My mother is not dead. 
My brother and sisters, and my uncle and aunt and 
grandfather are not dead. It may be true you have 
killed them, but they live in Heaven. I shall live 
with them. I would not be worthy of them if I 
proved untrue to their God and mine. Nor could 
I live in Heaven with them if I should marry a man 
I do not love. God would not like that. Do with 
me what you wish." 

Soldiers took her away. No one knows what be- 
came of her. The other maidens who had refused to 
" turn " were given to soldiers to sell to aghas and 
beys. So there was none left alive of the Christians 
of Egin, except the little handful of girls in the 
harems of the rich — worse than dead. 

When the Kurds carried me and the other girls they 
had stolen with me, into Egin they rode into the cen- 
ter of the city. We begged them to avoid the crowds 
of Turkish men and women on the streets because of 
our nakedness. They would not listen. 

We were taken into the yard of a large building, 
which I think must have been a Government building. 
There we found, in pitiable condition, hundreds of 
other young Armenian women, who had been stolen 
from bands of exiles from the Erzinjdan and Sivas 



RECRUITING FOR HAREMS OF CONSTANTINOPLE 125 

districts. Some had been there several days. Many 
were as unclothed as we were. Some had lost their 
minds and were raving. All were being held for an 
audience with the great Pasha, who had arrived at 
Egin only the night before. 

This Pasha, we learned soon after our arrival, was 
the notorious Kiamil Pasha, of Constantinople. He 
was very old now, surely not less than eighty years, 
yet he carried himself very straight and firm. Once, 
many years before, he had been the governor of Aleppo 
and had become famous throughout the world for his 
cruelties to the Christians then. It was said he was 
responsible for the massacres of 1895, and that he had 
been removed from office once at the request of Eng- 
land, only to be honored in his retirement by appoint- 
ment to a high post at Constantinople. 

With Kiamil Pasha there was Bukhar-ed-Din 
Shakir Bey, who, I afterward learned, was an emis- 
sary of Talaat Bey and Enver Pasha. 

A regiment of soldiers had come from Constanti- 
nople with Kiamil Pasha, and had camped just outside 
the city. This regiment later became known as the 
" Kasab Tabouri," the " butcher regiment," for it par- 
ticipated in the massacre of more than 50,000 of my 
people, under Kiamil Pasha's orders. 

Kiamil Pasha and Boukhar-ed-Din-Shakir Bey came 
to the building where we were kept and sat behind a 
table in a great room. We were taken in twenty at a 



126 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

time. Even those who were nude were compelled to 
stand in the line which faced his table. 

The pasha and the bey looked at us brutally when 
we stood before them. That which happened to those 
who went to the audience with me, was what happened 
to all the others. 

" His Majesty the Sultan, in his kindness of heart, 
wishes to be merciful to you, who represent the girl- 
hood of treacherous Armenia," said Boukhar-ed-Din- 
Shakir, while Kiamil looked at us silently. " You 
have been selected from many to receive the blessing 
of His Majesty's pity. You are to be taken to the 
great cities of Islam, where you will be placed under 
imperial protection in schools to be established for 
you, and where you may learn of those things which 
it is well for you to know, and forget the teachings 
of unbelievers. You will be kindly treated and given 
in marriage as opportunity arises into good Moslem 
homes, where your behavior will be the only measure 
of your content." 

Those were his words, as truly as I can remember 
them. No girl answered him. We knew better than 
to put faith in Turkish promises, and we knew what 
even that promise implied — apostasy. 

" Those of you who are willing to become Moslems 
will state their readiness," the bey continued. 

Though I cannot understand them, I cannot blame 
those who gave way now. The Pasha and the Bey 



RECRUITING FOR HAREMS OF CONSTANTINOPLE 12J 

said nothing more. They just burned us with their 
cold, glittering eyes, and waited. The strain was too 
terrible. Almost half the girls fell upon their knees 
or into the arms of stronger girls, and cried that they 
would agree. 

Boukhar-ed-Din-Shakir waved his hand toward the 
soldiers, who escorted or carried these girls Into an- 
other room. We never heard of them again. Kiamil 
still looked coldly and silently at those of us who had 
refused. The Bey said not a word either, but raised 
his hand again. Then soldiers began to beat us with 
long, cruel whips. 

We fell to the floor under the blows. The soldiers 
continued to beat us with slow, measured strokes — I 
can feel them now, those steady, cutting slashes with 
the whips the Turks use on convicts whom they basti- 
nado to death. A girl screamed for mercy and 
shouted the name of Allah. They carried her into the 
other room. Another could not get the words out of 
her throat. She held out her arms toward the Pasha 
and the Bey, taking the blows from the whip on her 
hands and wrists until they saw that she had given in. 
Then she, too, was carried out. Others fainted, only 
to revive under the blows that did not stop. 

Twice I lost consciousness. The second time I did 
not come to until it was over and, with others who 
had remained true to our religion, had been left in 
the courtyard. 



128 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

I think there were more than four hundred young 
women in the yard when I first was taken into it. 
Not more than twenty-five were with me now — all 
the rest had been beaten into apostasy. No one can 
tell what became of them. It was said Kiamil and 
Boukhar-ed-Din Shakir sent more than a thousand 
Armenian girls to Kiamil's estates on the Bosphorus, 
where they were cared for until their prettiness had 
been recovered and their spirits completely broken, 
when they were distributed among the rich beys and 
pashas who were the political associates of Kiamil, 
Boukhar-ed-Din-Shakir Bey, and Djevdet Bey of Van. 

We were kept in the courtyard four days, with 
nothing to eat but a bit of bread each day. Three of 
the young women died of their wounds. Often Turk- 
ish men and women would come to look into the yard 
and mock us. Turkish boys sometimes were allowed 
to throw stones at us. 

On the fourth day we were taken out by zaptiehs 
to join a party of a thousand or more women and 
children who had arrived during the night from Bai- 
bourt. All the women in this party were middle-aged 
or very old, and the children were very small. What 
girls and young women were left when the party 
reached Egin, had been kept in the city for Kiamil and 
Boukhar-ed-Din-Shakir Bey to dispose of. The older 
boys had been stolen by Circassians. There were al- 
most no babies, as these either had died when their 



RECRUITING FOR HAREMS OF CONSTANTINOPLE 120, 

mothers were stolen or had been killed by the soldiers. 

With this party we went seven hours from the city 
and were halted there to wait for larger parties of 
exiles from Sivas and Erzindjan, which were to meet 
at that point on the way to Diyarbekir. 

Both these parties had to pass through Divrig 
Gorge, which was near by. The exiles from Erzind- 
jan never reached us. They were met at the gorge by 
the Kasab Tabouri, the butcher regiment, and all were 
killed. There were four thousand in the party. Just 
after this massacre was finished the exiles from Sivas 
came into the gorge from the other side. 

The soldiers of the Kasab Tabouri were tired from 
their exertions in killing the 4,000 exiles from Erzind- 
jan such a short time before, so they made sport out 
of the reception of those from Sivas, who numbered 
more than 11,000 men, women and children. 

Part of the regiment stood in line around the bend 
of the gorge until the leaders of the Armenians came 
into view. Panic struck the exiles at once, and they 
turned to flee, despite their guards. But they found 
a portion of the regiment, which had been concealed, 
deploying behind them and cutting off their escape 
from the trap. 

As the regiment closed in, thousands of the women, 
with their babies and children in their arms, scram- 
bled up the cliffs on either side of the narrow pass, 
helped by their men folk, who remained on the road 



130 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

to fight with their hands and sticks against the armed 
soldiers. 

But the zaptiehs who accompanied the party sur- 
rounded the base of the cliffs and kept the women 
from escaping. Then the Kasab Tabouri killed men 
until there were not enough left to resist them. 
Scores of men feigned death among the bodies of their 
friends, and thus escaped with their lives. 

Part of the soldiers then scaled the cliffs to where 
the women were huddled. They took babies from the 
arms of mothers and threw them over the cliffs to com- 
rades below, who caught as many as they could on 
their bayonets. When babies and little girls were all 
disposed of this way, the soldiers amused themselves 
awhile making women jump over — prodding them 
with bayonets, or beating them with gun barrels until 
the women, in desperation, jumped to save themselves. 
As they rolled down the base of the cliff soldiers below 
hit them with heavy stones or held their bayonets so 
they would roll onto them. Many women scrambled 
to their feet after falling and these the soldiers forced 
to climb the cliffs again, only to be pushed back over. 

The Kasab Tabouri kept up this sport until it was 
dark. They were under orders to pass the night at 
Tshar-Rahya, a village three hours from the gorge, 
so when darkness came and they were weary even of 
this game they assembled and marched away singing, 
some with babies on their bayonets, others with an 



RECRUITING FOR HAREMS OF CONSTANTINOPLE I3I 

older child under their arms, greatly pleased with such 
a souvenir. Some salvaged a girl from the human 
debris and made her march along to unspeakable 
shame at the Tshar-Rahya barracks. 

Only 300 of all the 11,000 exiles lived and were able 
to march under the scourging of the handful of zap- 
tiehs who remained to guard them. They joined us 
where we had halted. 



CHAPTER VII 

MALATIA THE CITY OF DEATH 

Seven days after the massacre at Divrig Gorge, 
those of us who survived the cruelties of our guards 
along the way, saw just ahead of us the minarets of 
Malatia, one of the great converging points for the 
hundreds of thousands of deported Armenians on their 
way to the Syrian deserts which, by this time, I knew 
to be the destination of those who were permitted to 
live. When the minarets came into view, I was much 
excited by the hope that perhaps my mother's party 
might have reached there and halted, and that I might 
find her there. 

When we drew close to the city we passed along 
the road that countless other exiles had walked before. 
At the side of the road, in ridicule of the Crucifixion 
and as a warning to such Christian girls as lived to 
reach Malatia, the Turks had crucified on rough 
wooden crosses sixteen girls. I do not know how long 
the bodies had been there, but vultures already had 
gathered. 

Each girl had been nailed alive upon her cross, great 

132 



MALATIA — THE CITY OF DEATH I33 

cruel spikes through her feet and hands. Only their 
hair, blown by the wind, covered their bodies. 

"See,*' said our guards with great satisfaction; 
" see what will happen to you in Malatia if you are 
not submissive. " 

In the vicinity of Malatia, and in the city itself, 
there were more than twenty thousand refugees wait- 
ing to be sent on. Kurds were camped outside in little 
bands, each with its " Claw chief," waiting to waylay 
and plunder the exiles. Arabs rode about the hills in 
the distance — outlaw bands, who swooped down upon 
the Christians in the night and stole the strongest of 
the women and girls for the harvesting in the fields. 
Turkish beys and aghas, with here and there a digni- 
fied pasha, rode out along the road to inspect each 
band of exiles as it approached the city, their cruel, 
sensual eyes trying to pierce the veils the younger 
girls wrapped about their faces to conceal their youth 
and prettiness. 

From Sivas, Tokat, Egin, Erzindjan, Kerasun, 
Samsoun and countless smaller cities in the north, 
where the Armenians had had their homes for cen- 
turies, they had all been started toward Malatia. All 
the rivers in between were running red with blood; 
the valleys were great open graves in which thousands 
of bodies were left unburied; mountain passes were 
choked with the dead, and every rich Turk who kept a 
harem between the Black Sea and the River Tigris, 



134 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

had one or more, sometimes a score, of new concu- 
bines — Armenian girls who had been stolen for them 
along the road to this city. 

I often wonder if the good people of America know 
what the Armenians are — their character. I some- 
times fear Americans think of us as a nomad people, 
or as people of a lower class. We are, indeed, differ- 
ent. My people were among the first converts to 
Christ. They are a noble race, and have a literature 
older than that of any other peoples in the world. 

Very few Armenians are peasants. Nearly all are 
tradesmen, merchants, great and small, financiers, 
bankers or educators. In my city alone there were 
more than a score of business men or teachers who 
had received their education at American colleges. 
Hundreds had attended great European universities. 
My own education was received partly at the Ameri- 
can college at Marsovan and partly from private 
tutors. Many Armenians are very wealthy. Few 
Turks are as fortunate in this respect as the great 
Armenian merchants. 

Of the twenty thousand Christians herded in Ma- 
latia, in camps outside the city, in the public square 
or in houses set apart by the Turks for that purpose, 
I think much more than half were the members of 
well-to-do families, girls who had been educated either 
in Europe or in great Christian colleges at home, such 
as that at Marsovan, Sivas or Harpout, or in schools 



MALATIA — THE CITY OF DEATH I35 

conducted by the Swiss, the Americans, the English 
and the French. These girls had been taught music, 
literature and art. 

I want to tell what happened to one group of school 
girls near Malatia, as it was told me by one of them. 

At Kirk-Goz, a small city outside Malatia, there had 
been a German school, where young Armenian women 
from all over the district were sent to be taught by 
German teachers. The rule of the school was that 
the money received from the rich Armenian girls for 
their tuition was used in paying the expenses of poor 
girls. There were more than sixty pupils at this 
school when the attack on the Armenians began. As 
the school was under German protection, these girls 
considerea themselves safe, and their families were 
happy to think they were protected. Aziz Bey, the 
Kaimakam, sent soldiers, however, with orders to 
bring all the girls into Malatia, to be deported or 
worse. Mine. Roth, the principal, refused to open 
the gates. She declared Eimen EiTendi, the German 
consular agent in that district, would demand repara- 
tion if any attack on the school's pupils were made. 

Mme. Roth — who was a German and old — 
herself, went to Malatia to consult Eimen Efrendi. 
He told her Turkey was an ally of Germany, that 
Turkey declared Armenians to be obnoxious, and that 
Germany, therefore, must support the Sultan. He 
said the pupils would have to be surrendered. Then 



I36 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

the soldiers took them away. Each girl was permit- 
ted to have a donkey, which the teachers bought in the 
city for them. They started west, to Mezre, where, 
the authorities promised, the girls would be taken care 
of in a dervish monastery. 

Mme. Roth went, herself, before Aziz Bey and 
pleaded for the girls. She told him she was ashamed 
of being a German since Eimen Effendi had allowed 
such a horrible thing to be perpetrated with the con- 
sent of Germany. She offered the Bey all her per- 
sonal possessions, all the money she had with her at 
Kirk-Goz, if he would return the girl pupils and allow 
her to keep them with her. Mme. Roth was very 
wealthy. She had more than 1,000 liras, and jewels 
worth much more. Aziz Bey accepted the bribe and 
sent her, with an escort of soldiers, after the young 
women. 

Two days later Mme. Roth and her escort ap- 
proached the crossing of the river Tokma-Su, at the 
little village Keumer-Khan. There were tracks on 
the plain which showed the party they sought had 
passed that way but a little while before. Suddenly 
down the road toward them came an unclothed girl, 
running madly and screaming in terror. When she 
came near Mme. Roth and recognized her, the girl 
cried, " Teacher, teacher, save me ! Save me ! " 

The girl, whose name was Martha, and whose par- 
ents were rich people of Zeitoun, threw herself on the 



MALATIA — THE CITY OF DEATH 1 37 

ground at her teacher's feet and clasped them. " Save 
me ! Save me ! " she continued to scream. Mme. 
Roth gave her drops of brandy from a bottle she had 
carried with her, and tried to quiet her. Two zap- 
tiehs from the guard which the bey had sent with the 
school girls came running up. When Martha saw 
them she went mad again and became unconscious. 
The zaptiehs tried to take possession of her limp body, 
but Mme. Roth defied them. Her escort persuaded 
the zaptiehs to go away. When Mme. Roth knelt 
again by the girl she was dead. Marks on her body 
and bruises and wounds and her torn hair were evi- 
dences of the struggle she had made to save herself. 

Mme. Roth hurried on. She heard more screams as 
she neared the river banks. She came upon two zap- 
tiehs, sitting on the sand, prodding with a pointed stick 
the bare shoulders of a girl whom they had buried in 
the earth above her elbows. This was a favorite 
pastime of the zaptiehs of the Euphrates provinces. 
They had commanded the girl to submit to them 
quietly and she had fought them. To punish her and 
break her spirit they buried her that way and tortured 
her. She screamed with pain and fright, and this 
amused them greatly. When they wished the zaptiehs 
would take her out, and then bury her again. It was 
from such torture as this Martha had escaped. 

The soldiers of Mme. Roth's escort rescued the 
girl, at her command. Mme. Roth left her with three 



I38 RAVISHED' ARMENIA 

soldiers and crossed the river. She could hear 
screams from the other side. Once zaptiehs on the 
raft taking them across the river broke into a loud 
guffaw. The oarsmen steered the raft so as to escape 
two floating objects, and it was these which amused 
them. Mme. Roth saw the bodies of two of her girls 
floating down the river from where the screams came. 

" Look — look there," shouted a laughing zaptieh ; 
" two more Christians whom their Christ forgot ! " 

On the other side Mme. Roth found all who were 
left of her sixty or more pupils — only seventeen. 
Their lives were saved only because the zaptiehs had 
become weary. They were, too, the least pretty of 
the original party. Mme. Roth took them all back to 
Malatia, where the Kaimakam insisted that she house 
them. They were living there in constant fear of 
being taken away again when I was taken from the 
city. 

It was said by those who knew, that Mme. Roth re- 
fused to receive Eimen Effendi when he called upon 
her after her return with her surviving pupils. It is 
said she sent word to him that she was no longer Ger- 
man, and would ask no protection except that which 
she could buy with gold liras as long as she could ob- 
tain them from her relatives. 

In every open space in the city and in every empty 
building Armenian refugees were camped, hungry, 
footsore and dying, with little food or water. In all 



MALATIA — THE CITY OF DEATH 1 39 

our company there were not ten loaves of bread when 
we entered the city. When we asked at the wells of 
Turks for water we were spat at, and if soldiers were 
near the Turks would call them to drive us away. 
Each day thousands of the refugees were taken away, 
and each day thousands of others arrived from the 
north. 

Inside the city there was no attempt to care for the 
arriving exiles. Some of the men in our party finally 
led the way to a great building which had been a bar- 
racks, but in which many thousands of Christians had 
taken refuge. We seldom ventured out on the streets, 
for Turkish boys and Kurds and Arabs thronged the 
streets and threw stones or sticks at us, or, in the case 
of girls as young as I, carried them into Turkish shops 
or low houses, and there outraged them. 

When we had passed the second day in Malatia I 
could rest no longer without seeking my mother — 
hoping that she and the Armenians of Tchemesh- 
Gedzak might be among the other refugees. I went 
into the street at night and went from place to place 
where exiles were herded. Nowhere could I find 
familiar faces — people from my own city 

When morning came I could not find my way back 
to the building I had left. Morning comes quickly in 
the midst of the plains, and soon it was light, and I 
was in a part of the city where there were no exiles. 

The streets of Malatia are very narrow, and there 



140 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

are few byways. My bare feet were tired from walk- 
ing all night on cobblestones and pavements. I felt 
very tired — not as if I really were but little over 
fourteen. I knew I would soon be carried into one 
of these Turkish houses and lost, perhaps forever, if 
soldiers or gendarmes should catch me at large. I 
hid in a little areaway. 

Suddenly I realized that I was hugging the walls of 
a house over which hung the American flag. A feel- 
ing of relief came over me. The American flag is 
very beautiful to the eyes of all Armenians ! For 
many years it has been to my people the promise of 
peace and happiness. We had heard so much of the 
wonderful country it represented. Armenia always 
has thought of the United States as a friend ever 
ready to help her. 

When the street was clear I left my hiding place 
and went to the door of the house. I rapped, but 
Turks entered the street just then and spied me. 
They were citizens, not soldiers, but they shouted and 
started to run at me, recognizing me perhaps from 
the bits of garments which I had managed to gather to 
cover my body, as an Armenian. 

I screamed and pushed at the door. It opened, and 
I found myself in the arms of a woman who was 
hurrying to let me in. 

I was too frightened to explain. The Turks were 
at the door. I thought I would be carried away. 



MALATIA — THE CITY OF DEATH 141 

One of them pushed himself inside the door. Another 
followed, and they reached out their hands to take me. 

The woman, who was not Turkish, stepped in front 
of me. " What do you want ? — Why are you here ? " 
she asked in Turkish. " The girl — we want her. 
She has escaped," they said. 

The woman startled me by refusing to allow me to 
be taken. She told the Turks they had no authority. 
When the men motioned as if to take me by force 
she stepped in front of me and told them to remember 
that I was her guest. One of the men said : 

" The girl is an Armenian. She has run away from 
the rest of her people. She has no right to be at large 
in the city. The Kaimakam has ordered citizens to 
take into custody all Christians found outside quarters 
set aside for them to rest in while halting on their way 
past the city." 

" Your Kaimakam's orders have nothing to do with 
me. I shall protect the girl. You dare not harm an 
American ! " said my new friend. The Turks, grum- 
bling among themselves, and threatening vengeance, 
went out. 

The young woman told me she was Miss McLaine, 
an American missionary. The house was the home 
of the American consul at Malatia, but he had taken 
his wife, who was ill, to Harpout. Miss McLaine 
kept the flag flying while they were gone. She had 
tried to persuade the officials to be less cruel to the 



142 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

refugees, but could do very little. She had been a 
pupil of Dr. Clarence Ussher, the noted American 
missionary surgeon, of New York, and Mrs. Ussher, 
both of whom were famous throughout Armenia for 
their kindness to our people during the massacres at 
Van. Mrs. Ussher lost her life at Van. 

Late that day a squad of soldiers came from the 
Kaimakam to the consul's house and demanded that I 
be given up. Miss McLaine again refused to surren- 
der me. The soldiers declared they had orders to 
take me by force. Miss McLaine asked that they take 
her to the Kaimakam that she might ask his protection 
for me. To this the soldiers agreed, and I was left 
alone in the house. 

When Miss McLaine returned she was crying. The 
soldiers returned with her. The Kaimakam had said 
I must rejoin the exiles, but that I might be taken to 
a house where a large company of women who had 
embraced Mohammedanism were confined, with their 
children. This company, the mayor said, was to be 
protected until they reached a place selected by the 
government. 

So Miss McLaine could do nothing more. She 
kissed me^ and the soldiers led me away to the house 
where the apostasized women with their children were 
quartered. 

These apostasized Armenians were nearly all women 
from small cities between Malatia and Sivas. None 



MALATIA — THE CITY OF DEATH I43 

of them really had given up Christianity, but they 
thought they were doing right, as nearly all the 
women were the mothers of small children who were 
with them. They wanted to save the lives of their 
little ones. They did not know what was to become 
of them, but the beys had promised they would be 
taken care of by the government. 

This party of exiles was fed by the Turks — bread, 
water and coarse cakes. We were not allowed out of 
the house, but the Turks did not bother us. I soon 
had occasion to realize that the Kaimakam really had 
given me at least some protection when he allowed me 
to join this party. 

In some of the companies waiting in Malatia the 
men had not been killed. One day the soldiers gath- 
ered all of these into one big party. The mayor 
wanted them to register, the soldiers said, so allot- 
ments of land could be made them at their destina- 
tion in the south. So earnest were the soldiers the 
men believed them. Many went without even putting 
on their coats. They were marched to the building 
in which I had first been quartered, and from which 
other refugees had been taken out the night before. 

Almost 3,000 men were thus assembled. Outside 
soldiers took up their station at the doors and win- 
dows. Other soldiers then robbed the men of their 
money and valuables — such as they had saved from 
Kurds along the road, and then began killing them. 



144 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

When bodies had piled so high the soldiers could not 
reach survivors without stumbling in blood, then they 
used their rifles, and killed the remainder with bullets. 

That afternoon soldiers visited all the camps of 
refugees and took children more than five years old. 
I think there must have been eight or nine thousand 
of these. The soldiers came even to the house in 
which I was with the "turned" Armenians, and de- 
spite the promises of the mayor took all our boys and 
girls. When mothers clung to their little ones and 
begged for them the soldiers beat them off. "If they 
die now your God won't be troubled by having to look 
after them till they grow up," the soldiers said — and 
always with a brutal laugh. 

They took the children to the edge of the city, where 
a band of Aghja Daghi Kurds was waiting. Here the 
soldiers gave the children into the keeping of the 
Kurds, who drove them off toward the Tokma 
River, just outside the city. The Kurds drove the 
little ones like a flock of sheep. At the river banks 
the boys were thrown into the river. The girls were 
taken to Turkish cities, to be raised as Mohammedans 



CHAPTER VIII 

IN THE HAREM OF HADJI GHAFOUR 

After the massacre of the men all the exiles waiting 
in Malatia were told to prepare for the road again. 
We were assembled outside the city early one morn- 
ing. Only women and some children, with here and 
there an old man, were left. We were told we were 
to be taken to Diyarbekir, a hundred miles across the 
country. Very few had hopes of surviving this stage 
of the journey, as the country was thickly dotted with 
Turkish, Circassian and Kurdish villages, and inhab- 
ited by most fanatical Moslems. Civilians were more 
cruel to the deportees along the roads between the 
larger cities, than the soldiers. Some of the treat- 
ment suffered by our people from these fanatical resi- 
dents of small towns was such that I cannot even 
write of it. 

When the column was formed, outside Malatia, it 
was made up of fifteen thousand women, young and 
old. Very few had any personal belongings. Few 
had food. Many had managed to hold onto money, 
however, and these were ready to share what they had 
with those who had none. Money was the only surety 

145 



I46 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

of enough food to sustain life on the long walk, and 
the only hope of protection against a zaptieh's lust 
for killing. 

The company of apostates which I had been per- 
mitted to join was placed at the head of the column, 
with a special guard of soldiers. Zaptiehs guarded 
the other companies, but there were very few assigned. 
Most of the zaptiehs in that district had been placed 
in the Mesopotamian armies. My party of apostates, 
of which there were about two hundred, was the best 
guarded. The others were wholly at the mercy of 
Kurds and villagers. 

It was now late in June, and very hot. Scores of 
aged women dropped to the ground, prostrated by heat 
and famished for water, of which there was only that 
which we could beg from farmers along the way. 
The mother of two girls in my party, who, with her 
daughters, already had walked a hundred miles into 
Malatia, was beaten because she fell behind. She fell 
to the ground and could not get up. The soldiers 
would not let us revive her. Her two daughters could 
only give her a farewell kiss and leave her by the 
roadside. 

One of these two girls was a bride — a widowed 
bride. She had seen her husband and father killed 
in the town of Kangai, on the Sivas road, and when 
the Kurds were about to kill her mother because she 
was old, she begged a Turkish officer, who was near 



IN THE HAREM OF HADJI GHAFOUR I47 

by, to save her. The officer had asked her if she 
would renounce her religion to save her mother, and 
she consented — she and her younger sister. 

The sisters walked on with their arms about each 
other. They dared not even look around to where 
their mother lay upon the ground. When we could 
hear the woman's moans no longer I walked over to 
them and asked them to let me stay near them. I 
knew how they must feel. I wondered if my own 
mother and my little brothers and sisters had lived. 
A soldier in Malatia had told me exiles from Tche- 
mesh-Gedzak had passed through there weeks before 
and had gone, as we were going, toward Diyarbekir. 
Perhaps, he said, they might still be there when we 
arrived — if we ever did. 

A few hours outside the city we were halted. We 
were much concerned by this, as such incidents usually 
meant new troubles. This time was no exception. 
As soon as we stopped villagers flocked down upon us 
and began to rob us. 

Just before sundown a loud cry went up. We 
looked to the east, where there was a wide pass 
through the hills, and saw a band of horsemen riding 
down upon us. They were Kurds, as we could tell 
from the way they rode. The villagers shouted — 
" It is Kerim Bey, the friend of Djebbar. It is well 
for us to scatter ! " They then scrambled back into 
the hills, afraid, it seemed, the Kurd chieftain would 



I48 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

not welcome their foraging among his prospective 
victims. 

To say that Kerim Bey was " a friend of Djebbar " 
explained his coming with his band. Djebbar Effendi 
was the military commandant of the district, sent by 
the government at Constantinople to oppress Arme- 
nians during the deportations. His word was law, 
and always it was a cruel word. Kerim Bey was the 
most feared of the Kurd chiefs — he and Musa Bey. 
Both were of the Aghja Daghi Kurds. Kerim Bey 
and his band ruled the countryside, and frequently re- 
volted against the Turks. To keep him as an ally 
Djebbar Effendi had given into his keeping many com- 
panies of exiled Armenians sent from Malatia to 
Diyarbekir and beyond. 

There were hundreds of horsemen in Kerim's band. 
They had ridden far and were tired, too tired to take 
up the march in the moonlight, but not too tired to 
begin at once the nightly revels which kept us terror- 
ized for so many days after. Scarcely had they hob- 
bled their horses in little groups that stretched along 
the side of the column when they began to collect their 
toll. Screams and cries for mercy and the groans of 
mothers and sisters filled the night. 

I saw terrible things that night which I cannot tell. 
When I see them in my dreams now I scream, so even 
though I am safe in America, my nights are not peace- 
ful. A group of these Kurds so cruelly tortured one 



IN THE HAREM OF HADJI* GHAFOUR I49 

young woman that women who were near by became 
crazed and rushed in a body at the men to save the 
girl from more misery. For a moment the Kurds 
were trampled under the feet of the maddened women, 
and the girl was hurried away. 

When they recovered, the Kurds drew their long, 
sharp knives and set upon the brave women and 
killed them all. I think there must have been fifty of 
them. They piled their bodies together and set fire to 
their clothes. While some fanned the blaze others 
searched for the girl who had been rescued, but they 
could not find her. So, baffled in this, they caught 
another girl and carried her to the flaming pile and 
threw her upon it. W T hen she tried to escape they 
threw her back until she was burned to death. 

When the Kurds approached my party of apostates, 
the soldiers with us turned them away. " You may do 
as you wish with the others — these are protected," 
said the Turkish officer in charge. But this same 
officer was not content to be only a spectator while 
the Kurds were reveling. 

Five soldiers came from his tent and sought a young 
woman they thought would please their chief. They 
tore aside the veils of women whose forms suggested 
they might be young, until they came upon a girl from 
the town of Derenda, toward Sivas. She was very 
pretty, but one of the soldiers, when they were drag- 
ging her off, recognized her. 



150 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

" Kah ! " he grunted to his comrades. " This one 
will not do. She is no longer a maid ! " They pushed 
her aside and sought further. But each girl they laid 
their hands on after that cried to them, " I, too, am 
not a virgin ! " Each one was given a blow and 
thrust aside when she claimed to have been already 
shamed. 

Soon the soldiers saw they were being cheated of 
the choicest prey. They turned upon some older 
women and seized three. One of them they forced to 
her knees and two of the soldiers held her head back 
between their hands until her face was turned to the 
stars. Another soldier pressed his thumbs upon her 
eyeballs, and said: 

"If there be no virgin among you, then by Allah's 
will this woman's eyes come out ! " 

There was a cry of horror, then a shriek. A girl 
who must have been of my own age, and whom I had 
often noticed because her hair was so much lighter 
than that of nearly all Armenian girls, threw herself, 
screaming, upon the ground at the soldiers' feet. 
Winding her hands about the legs of the soldier whose 
thumbs were pressing against the woman's eyes, she 
cried : 

" My mother ! my mother ! Spare her — here I am 
— I am still a maid ! " 

The soldiers seized the girl, guffawing loudly at the 
success of their plan. As they lifted her between them 



IN THE HAREM OF HADJI GHAFOUR 151 

she flung out her hands toward the woman, who had 
fallen in a heap when the soldiers released her. 
" Mother," the girl screamed, " kiss me — kiss me ! " 
The poor woman struggled to her feet and reached 
out her arms, but her eyes were hurt and she could not 
see. The girl begged the soldiers to carry her to her 
mother. "I will go — I will go, and be willing — 
but let me kiss my mother ! " she cried. But the sol- 
diers hurried her away. 

The mother stood, leaning on those who crowded 
close to comfort her. Then, suddenly, she drooped 
and sank to the ground. When we bent over her she 
was dead. We sat by the body until the daughter 
came back — after the moon had crossed the sky, and 
it must have been midnight. The girl hid her face 
when she came near, until she could bury it in her 
mother's shawl. She sat by the body until morning, 
when we took up our march again. 

Every night sucii things happened. 

Other parties along that road had fared the same. 
Sometimes I counted the bodies of exiles who had pre- 
ceded us until I could count no longer. They lay at 
the roadside, where their guards had left them, for 
miles. 

On the eleventh day we came to Shiro, the Turkish 
city where caravans for Damascus spend the night in 
a large khan and then turn southward. There are 
even more caravans now than there used to be, for 



152 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

now they travel only to the Damascus railway and 
then return. Shiro is the home of many Turks, who 
profit from traders, or who have retired from posts of 
power and profit at Constantinople. It is not a large 
town, but more a settlement of wealthy aghas. 

We camped outside this little city. Early the next 
morning military officers came out. Kerim Bey met 
them, and there was a short conference. Then the 
Kurds began to gather the prettiest girls. They tore 
them from their relatives and half dragged, half car- 
ried them to where guards were placed to take charge 
of them. 

All morning the Kurds carried young women away 
until more than a hundred had been accepted by the 
officer from the city. Then the apostates were or- 
dered to join these weeping girls, and we were marched 
into the town. 

The narrow streets were crowded with Turks and 
Arabs. They hooted at us, and made cruel jests as 
we passed. Among the apostates were many old 
women, whose daughters had sworn to be Mohamme- 
dans to save them. When the crowds saw these they 
laughed with ridicule. Once the citizens swooped 
down upon the party and, unhindered by our guards, 
seized four of the older women, stripped off their 
clothing and carried them away on their shoulders, 
shouting in great glee. We never heard what became 



IN THE HAREM OF HADJI GHAFOUR 1 53 

of these. I think they were just tossed about by the 
crowd until they died. 

We were taken to a house which we soon learned 
was the residence of Hadji Ghafour, one of the largest 
houses in the city. Only devout Moslems who have 
made the pilgrimage to Mecca may be called " Hadji." 
Hadji Ghafour was looked up to as one of the most 
religious of men. 

In the house of Hadji Ghafour we were crowded 
into a large room, with bare stone walls, where camels 
and dromedaries were often quartered over night. 

Hadji Ghafour came into the room, accompanied 
by soldiers. We of the apostate party had been put 
into one corner with Kurds to watch us. Hadji Gha- 
four gave an order to his servants and they separated 
the most pleasing girls and younger women from the 
others. Of these, with me among them, there were 
only thirty. We were taken out of the room and 
into another, not so large, on another floor of the 
house. The fate of those who were not satisfactory 
to Hadji Ghafour I never learned. A soldier told one 
of us they were allowed to rejoin the deportation 
parties. 

Those of us who had been chosen were taken to the 
hamman, or bath chamber, and garments were brought 
for those whose clothes were frayed or, as it was 
with some, who had almost none at all. Turkish 



154 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

women and negro slave girls watched us in the bath 
and locked us up again. 

At the end of an hour we heard steps. The door 
was opened and a huge black slave, with other negroes 
behind him, summoned us. Frightened and too cowed 
to ask questions or hold back, we followed the slave 
through halls and up stairways, until we came to a 
huge rug-strewn chamber, brilliantly lighted with 
lamps and candles. On divans heavy with cushions, 
at one side of the room, sat Hadji Ghafour and a 
group of other Turks who were of his class, all middle 
aged or older, none with a kindly face. 

Those of us who had been taken from the apos- 
tasized party stood to one side, while a servant said, 
to the others : 

" It is the will of Hadji Ghafour, whose house has 
given you refuge, that you repay his kindness in saving 
you from the dangers that confront your people by 
repenting of your unbelief and accept the grace of 
Islam." 

The Turks made sounds of approval, and a tur- 
banned Khateeb, or priest of the mosque, entered the 
chamber, with an attendant who carried the prayer 
rug. Behind him was a negro servant carrying a whip 
of bull's hide. The prayer rug was spread, and the 
Khateeb waited. 

The Turks pointed to a shrinking girl and the serv- 
ants pulled her out " What say you ? " the officer 



IN THE HAREM OF HADJI GHAFOUR 155 

asked. " I belong to Christ — in His keeping I must 
remain," the girl replied. The negro's whip fell 
across her shoulders. When she screamed for mercy 
the Khateeb bared his feet, stepped upon the prayer 
rug and turned to Mecca. " Allah is most great ; there 
is no God but Allah ! " his voice droned. The negro 
flung the girl onto the carpet. He held his cruel whip 
ready to strike again if she did not quickly kneel. Her 
face also turned to Mecca as she stumbled to her knees. 
Her flesh already was torn and bleeding. Terror of 
the whip was in her heart. To escape it she could 
only say the rek'ah — " There is no God but Allah and 
Mohammed is his prophet." 

When the last one had recited the sacrilegious creed 
the Khateeb folded the prayer rug and left the room. 
Hadji Ghafour, smiling now, ordered us all to stand 
before his guests again. All were apostates now ex- 
cept me, whom the Turks thought had previously taken 
the oath, else I would not have been in the party 
which I had joined. The law as well as Hadji Gha- 
four' s piousness allowed them to do with us now as 
they chose. 

One by one. they selected us, according to their fan- 
cies — Hadji Ghafour first, and then his guests. How 
they had arranged the order of choice I do not know, 
but they had agreed among themselves. There were 
five or six girls for each of the Turks. I was among 
those ordered aside for Hadji Ghafour, who had also 



I56 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

chosen the two daughters who had been compelled to 
leave their mother dying on the Sivas road. 

The two sisters had been very quiet all that day. 
They had spoken but little to any of the rest of us since 
we were taken into the house of Hadji Ghafour. Nor 
had they cried — afterwards I remembered how their 
faces that day seemed to be bright with a great courage. 

The girls chosen by the guests of Hadji Ghafour 
were taken away in separate groups to the houses of 
those who claimed their bodies. When these guests 
and their captives had gone Hadji Ghafour again sum- 
moned us. It was one of the sisters, the elder, to 
whom he spoke first. His words were terrible. He 
asked her, oh, so cruelly low and soft, if she were will- 
ing to belong to him, body and soul, to live contented 
in his house, to be obedient and — affectionate in her 
submission. 

The girl waited not an instant. " I had renounced 
my God to save my mother, but it availed me nothing. 
Her life was taken. I have given myself to God — 
and I will not betray Him again ! " 

Hadji Ghafour motioned to his negro slave, who 
caught the girl in his arms and carried her out of the 
room. Her sister had been standing near her. Hadji 
Ghafour's eyes fell upon her next. 

"And you, my little one," he said, just as low and 
soft. And he repeated the questions to her he had 
spoken to her sister. She spoke softly, too — softer 



IN THE HAREM OF HADJI GHAFOUR 1 57 

than had her sister, yet just as firmly. " She was my 
sister. With her I saw my mother die, and now you 
have taken her. You may kill me also, but I will never 
submit to you." 

Those of us who watched looked with terror at 
Hadji Ghafour. This time his eyes narrowed and 
glittered. " You have spoken well, my little one," he 
said, still so gently he might have been speaking to a 
beloved daughter. " Perhaps I had better kill you as 
a warning to my other little ones." 

The negro with the whip stood near. Hadji Gha- 
four did not even speak to him — just motioned with 
his hands. Two other servants sprang forward. 
Quickly they stripped the girl of her clothes. And 
then the whip fell upon her naked body. 

I shut my eyes so I could not see, but I could not 
shut out the sound of the whip cutting into the flesh, 
again and again, until I lost count. Even when the 
girl screamed no more and her moans died away the 
whip did not stop for a long time. Then suddenly 
I realized the blows had ceased. I opened my eyes 
and saw one of the servants lifting the girl's body 
from the floor. He held her by the waist, and her 
arms and bleeding legs hung limp. She was dead. 

None of us had courage after that. We gave Hadji 
Ghafour our promises. We were taken out another 
door, this time to the women's apartments, where 
women of the household were waiting to receive us. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE RAID ON THE MONASTERY 

The women of the haremlik had retired, except the 
three who awaited our coming. These took us through 
a long, narrow corridor, lit only by a single lamp, to a 
separate wing of the house. Through a curtained 
doorway we entered a series of small stone-floored 
rooms, in which women were sleeping. At last we 
came to a wooden door, which one of the women 
opened, pushing us through. One of them lit a taper. 

The room was barren, with not even a window. On 
the floor was a row of sleeping rugs, but there were 
neither cushions nor pillows. The women told us to 
remove our clothing, and took it from us as we obeyed. 
Without another word the women left us, taking the 
taper with them and locking the door. 

Through the long night we waited — for what we 
did not know. We were afraid to sleep, even if we 
could. 

We knew morning had come when we heard the 
faint call to prayer from some neighboring minaret. 
Soon the haremlik was astir. We trembled as we 
waited for the door to open. 

It was a big negro who finally swung it wide, let- 

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THE RAID ON THE MONASTERY 1 59 

ting into the room the light from the windows that 
opened from the other rooms of the haremlik. One 
of the servant women who had received us the night 
before entered after him. 

For each of us the woman brought an entareh, 
or Turkish house dress, and slippers and stockings. 
The dresses were of satin and linen, but very plain. 
Though I wanted something with which to cover my- 
self, I could not help shrinking from the hated Turkish 
dresses. The woman saw me and seemed to under- 
stand. 

" You will have prettier things after a while — after 
your betrothal ! " 

After my betrothal ! 

When we had dressed, with the aid of the woman, 
she ordered us to follow the negro. " What you will 
see now, according to the desire of Hadji Ghafour, 
will serve to guide your conduct in the haremlik," the 
woman said. 

The slave led us through a smaller room into a large 
chamber, in which were gathered many excited women 
crowded about a window. 

At the window-sill the slave peered out and then 
ordered us to draw nearer. The window opened upon 
a wide court. Across the court were many small win- 
dows. For a moment I saw nothing but the bleak 
stone wall. Then my eyes lifted to a window higher 
up. I shrieked and recoiled. 



l6o RAVISHED ARMENIA 

The dead body of the elder sister of the girl who had 
been beaten to death, the one who had been carried 
away when she defied Hadji Ghafour, was hanging by 
its feet from a rope attached to the window-sill. The 
girl's arms had been tied behind her back and now 
hung away from her body. Her hair was hanging 
from her swaying head. A bandage, still tied over her 
mouth, had muffled her screams. 

One of the girls with me, Lusaper, who had cried 
all night, fell to her knees and became hysterical. 
The slave lifted her and tried to make her look again. 
When he saw she was half mad he carried her to a 
couch at the other side of the room and two little negro 
slave girls immediately began to comfort her. Other 
women crowded around her, too. The slave left us 
then, as did the woman servant who had been with us. 

The women of the haremlik seemed to want to be 
very kind. The Turkish women were older than the 
apostate women. Hadji Ghafour's two wives were 
not among them, as their apartments were elsewhere, 
and I do not know what the relationship of the other 
women to him was, whether as concubines or rela- 
tives. Nearly all the younger women were Armenian 
girls who had been stolen. They were very sorry for 
us. 

Food was brought in this chamber, and we ate to- 
gether. Already I had made up my mind to be as 



THE RAID ON THE MONASTERY l6l 

brave as I could and to hope and pray that I might be 
delivered from that house. 

All the Armenian girls in the haremlik had at one 
time passed through just such experiences as had been 
ours the night before in the presence of Hadji Gha- 
four. There were eight of them, and all had apos- 
tasized with the hope of saving relatives, only to be 
taken to Hadji Ghafour's house upon their arrival at 
Geulik. Only one of them knew what had become of 
her family. This one had seen her mother killed and 
her sister taken by the Kurds on the road from Ma- 
latia. 

Four days I remained in the haremlik without being 
summoned by Hadji Ghafour. On the third day one 
of the other of the " new " girls came back to us in 
the morning, quiet and ashamed, with her eyes down- 
cast. That same day the harem slaves took away her 
plain entareh and gave her a richly embroidered dress. 
Such was the sign of her having been " betrothed." 

We were not allowed outside the haremlik. Each 
night we were compelled to say the Mohammedan 
prayers. I learned to say them aloud and translate 
them in my mind into the words of Christian prayers. 
The head servant of the haremlik, an elderly Turkish 
woman, who was as kind to us as she could be, took 
occasion every day to warn us that if we wished to live 
and be happy we must be pleasing to Hadji Ghafour. 



l62 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

Other women told US' of girls who had come into the 
harem, never to appear again after their " betrothal " 
to the master. When these things were spoken of we 
could not help thinking of the body we saw hanging 
from the window across the court — that was Hadji 
Ghafour's way of teaching us to be submissive. 

We were not put in the dark, windowless room again. 
Once one of Hadji Ghafour's wives came into the 
harem to see us. She was middle-aged, and from 
Bagdad. She once had been very beautiful, I think, 
but seemed to be cruel and without affection. She 
had us brought before her and questioned each one of 
us about our experiences in the deportations. She 
seemed to want to trap us into admissions that we had 
not truly become Mohammedans. 

Among the Armenian girls in the harem was one 
who came from Perri, a village between my own city 
and Harpout. During the nights she told me of the 
massacres in her village, and how the Turks had 
spared her because she accepted Islam, until they 
reached Malatia. There she had been stolen, taken 
first to the home of a bey and then sent with other 
Armenian girls to Geulik. She, too, had been taken 
straight to the house of Hadji Ghafour. She had gone 
through with her " betrothal," and had found some 
favor in the eyes of the Turk. 

This little girl was Arousiag Vartessarian, whose 
father, Ohannes, had owned much land. She had been 



THE RAID ON THE MONASTERY 163 

educated at Constantinople. In Constantinople she 
learned of the American, Mr. Cleveland Dodge, of 
New York, who has done so much for education in 
Turkey. Since I have come to America I have learned 
that this same Mr. Cleveland Dodge is the best friend 
the Armenians have in all the world. 

Arousiag was secretly Christian still. But she did 
not hope ever to escape from the harem. She told me 
Hadji Ghafour kept Armenian girls only until he had 
tired of them or until prettier ones were available. 
Then he sent them to his friends, or to be sold to Turk- 
ish farmers. She had tried to please him, so she would 
not be sold into an even worse state, for sometimes a 
girl who falls into the slave market will be sold into 
a public house for soldiers and zaptiehs. 

On the evening of the fifth day my heart sank and 
my knees grew weak when a little negro slave girl 
came to tell me Hadji Ghafour had sent for me. 

The servant women gathered around me, each pro- 
fessing not to understand why I was not elated. Only 
when my tears fell did they cease their jesting at the 
arrival — "at last," they said, of the hour of my su- 
preme torture — my " good fortune " they called 
it. 

While I was being dressed I closed my eyes and 
prayed — not to be saved, for that was too late, but 
for strength and for the joy of knowing that God 
would be watching over me. One of the harem women 



1 64 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

walked with me down the narrow corridor and through 
the door I had not passed since I left Hadji Ghafour's 
presence five days before. 

The lights of many lamps glowed in the room. Just 
inside the door the big negro was waiting. Across, 
on his cushions, with his nargilleh on the floor beside 
him, sat Hadji Ghafour. His eyes were full upon 
me when I stopped at the sound of the door closing 
behind me. 

He motioned for me to approach and sit upon a 
cushion at his feet. Involuntarily I shrank back and 
threw my hands before my eyes. An instant later I 
felt the negro's hand gripping my arm. I tried to hold 
back and I tried to gather courage to go forward — I 
knew my hopes of a happier future depended upon my 
submission. 

The negro tightened his grip. Under his breath he 
murmured, " Be a good little one. You will be the 
better for it." I could not look up, but I went and 
sat upon the cushion at Hadji Ghafour's feet! 

It is needless to say more of that terrible night ! 

To Arousiag I confided the next day that I must, 
somehow, escape from Hadji Ghafour's house. To 
remain meant more tortures and lessened such chance 
as there might be that I would find my mother at 
Diyarbekir, where refugees with money were allowed 
by the Vali to remain just outside the city — provided 
they paid liberally for the privilege. When their 



THE RAID ON THE MONASTERY 165 

money was gone they were sent away with other exiles 
into the Syrian desert. 

I had tried to coax Hadji Ghafour to send messen- 
gers to Diyarbekir to rescue my family if they could 
be found there, or to learn what had become of them. 
He would not grant me this favor. " You are a Turk- 
ish girl now," he said, " and you must forget all past 
associations with unbelievers. ,, 

Arousiag feared for me the consequences of my 
being caught in an attempt to escape. Captives who 
had tried to run away before had been sold into the 
public houses, where they soon died. When I had 
made her understand, though, that I would risk any- 
thing rather than remain in Hadji Ghafour's house, 
she promised to help me. It was then she told me, 
when we were alone in our couches that night, that 
to the west, across the plains, toward the Euphrates, 
was a monastery, founded ages ago by Roman Catholic 
Dominican Fathers, who came into Armenia as mis- 
sionaries. During all the centuries Armenian reli- 
gious refugees had been received in this monastery, 
Arousiag told me, and from there many teachers were 
sent into Syria and even to Kurdistan. 

A man from Albustan, who really was an Armenian 
Derder, or priest, but who was disguised as a Turk 
and making his way to the Caucasus, where he hoped 
to get aid for the exiles from the Russians, had told 
Arousiag of the monastery while she was being kept 



l66 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

in Malatia. Many Armenian girls had found safety 
there, the Derder had said, as the Fathers in the mon- 
astery had not been molested, and their refuge was 
far off the track of the companies of deported Chris- 
tians. Many years ago, the Derder told Arousiag, the 
monastery Fathers had saved the life of a famous 
chieftain, and there were legends about it which kept 
the Kurds from attacking the monastery. For some 
reasons the Turks had not molested it, either. 

Arousiag confided to me that she had often planned 
to escape from the house and try to go alone to the 
monastery. There, she was sure, there would be 
safety — for a time at least. But each time her cour- 
age deserted her. Now she was willing to make the 
effort, since I, too, would rather risk everything than 
remain a victim of Hadji Ghafour. 

The windows of the sleeping apartments were high, 
and were not barred, as they opened only into a court- 
yard. Arousiag knew of a passageway from the court- 
yard into the divan-khane, or reception chamber, which 
opened onto the street. Often the servants of the 
haremlik went into the street through this passageway. 

A night came when Hadji Ghafour sent early for 
the girl he desired. It was long before the haremlik's 
retiring hour. Arousiag and I slipped away and let 
ourselves down from a window into the courtyard. 
We hurried through the divan-khane and into the 
streets. We had veiled ourselves, and, with Turkish 



THE RAID ON THE MONASTERY 167 

slippers, we were mistaken for Turkish girls or harem 
slaves hurrying home to escape a scolding. 

When we came to the gates of the city we were 
frightened l'est we be stopped — but the Turkish sol- 
diers guarding the gate had stolen for themselves 
some Armenian girls from refugees camped near the 
city, and were too busy amusing themselves with these 
girls to notice us. Soon we were beyond the city, alone 
in the night. The sands cut through our thin slippers, 
and we were afraid that every shadow was that of a 
lurking Kurd. 

It was twenty miles or more, Arousiag believed, to 
the monastery. For three days we traveled, hiding 
most of the days in the sand for fear of wandering 
villagers or Kurds, and walking as far as we could at 
night. We had no bread or other food, and only late 
at night, when the dogs in the villages were asleep, 
could we dare to approach a village well for water. 

Arousiag suffered much from thirst on the fourth 
day. She was so famished for water, of which we 
had none the night before, that when I cried she mois- 
tened her tongue with my tears. At last she could go 
no further and sank to the earth. In the distance was 
an Arab village. The Arabs are not like the Kurds — 
they are very fierce sometimes, and do not like the Ar- 
menians, but unless they are in the pay of Turkish 
pashas they are not always cruel. To save Arousiag's 
life I left her and went into the village. 



l68 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

The Arab women gathered around me, and to them 
I appealed for food and water, as best I could. The 
women pitied me, and when the Arab men came to 
inspect me they, too, felt sorry. They brought a gourd 
of cool water, and bread, and some of the women went 
with me to where Arousiag lay. The water revived 
and strengthened her, and it gave me strength too. 
Our clothes were mostly torn away, and the Arab 
women gave us other garments and sandals for our 
feet. The monastery, they said, was but a few miles 
further on, and they showed us the nearest way. An 
Arab boy went with us to tell the men of other villages 
that we must not be harmed. Also the boy guided us 
away from a Circassian village, where we would have 
been made captives. 

When the gray stone walls of the comient rose be- 
fore us in the distance Arousiag and I knelt down on 
the earth and thanked our Savior. The Arab boy 
turned and ran back when he saw we were praying to 
the Christ of the " unbelievers." But we were very 
grateful to him. 

It was almost evening, and the monks were at prayer. 
We stood at the gate until some of them heard our 
call, and then they let us in. The monks were very 
kind. They gathered around us and listened to our 
story. Then they took us into their little chapel and 
knelt down around us, while the prior chanted a prayer 
of thankfulness. 



THE RAID ON THE MONASTERY 169 

When the prayer was finished a monk led us to a 
part of the monastery separated from the main build- 
ings. Here we were astonished to find more than half 
a hundred Armenian girls and widowed brides, who, 
like us, had found refuge among the monks. Nearly 
all these girls and young women were from Van, the 
largest of the Armenian cities, or from districts near 
by. Some were from Bitlis, where thousands of my 
people had been killed in a single hour, only the girls 
and brides being left alive for the pleasure of the 
Turks. Some had escaped from Diyarbekir. 

All had been directed to the monastery as a refuge 
by friendly Arabs or Armenian Derders. One by one 
or in groups of two and three they had applied at the 
monastery gates just as had Arousiag and I, and the 
monks had taken them in, disregarding the great dan- 
ger to themselves. 

We all were cautioned not to show ourselves outside 
the smaller building which the monks had given over 
to us, lest wandering Kurds or soldiers chance to see 
us and thus discover that the monastery was the re- 
treat of escaped refugees. The monks prayed with us 
twice every day and nursed back to health those who 
were ill. Little Arousiag became very glad when the 
prior assured her that God had understood, when she 
renounced Him, that in her heart she was still loyal to 
Him. When the aged prior knelt with her alone and 
prayed especially that God forgive her every bias- 



I7Q RAVISHED ARMENIA 

phemous prayer she had made to Allah while under the 
eyes of the watchful harem women in the house of 
Hadji Ghafour, she was happy again. 

For two weeks we were safe in the monastery. 
Then, suddenly, our peace was ended. One night, 
long after every one in the monastery had gone to 
sleep, we , were awakened by a great shouting and 
pounding at the gates. From our windows we could 
look into the yard, but we could not see the gate itself. 
While we huddled together in fright we saw the little 
company of monks, hastily robed, led by their aged 
prior, carrying a lighted candle, move slowly across 
the yard. When they had passed out of our sight to- 
ward the gate the shouting suddenly stopped, and we 
heard voices demanding that the gate be opened. 

I think the monks refused. The shouting began 
again, and we saw the monks retreating across the 
yard. An. instant later a horde of strange figures, 
which we recognized as those of Tchetchens, or Cir- 
cassian bandits, pushed across the yard to the monas- 
tery doors. When the monks refused to open the iron 
gates they had climbed the walls. 

Tchetchens are even more cruel and wicked than the 
Kurds. They are constantly at war, either with the 
Kurds and Arabs, or the Turks themselves. During 
the massacres the Turks had propitiated them by giv- 
ing them permission to prey upon the bands of Arme- 
nian exiles in their district and to steal as many Chris- 



THE RAID ON THE MONASTERY I7I 

tian girls as they wished. Always in the past it has 
been the Tchetchens who have brought to the harems 
of the pashas their prettiest girls, as they do not hesi- 
tate to steal the daughters of their own people, the 
Circassians, for the slave markets of Constantinople 
and Smyrna. 

The monks tried to barricade themselves in their 
chapel. The prior pleaded through the iron barred 
windows with the Tchetchen leader, appealing to him 
for the same consideration even the Kurds had always 
given the monastery. But the Tchetchen chief had 
learned in some manner that Armenian girls had been 
concealed in the monastery, and he demanded that we 
be surrendered as the price of mercy for the monks. 

The monks refused to open their chapel doors or to 
reveal our hiding place. But the chapel doors were of 
wood — they gave way when the Tchetchens rushed 
against them. We heard the shrieks of our friends, 
the monks. There were cries for mercy, prayers to 
God and brutal shouts from the Tchetchens. In a lit- 
tle while there were no more screams, no more prayers 
— just the shouting of the bandits. 

There was no escape for us. The Tchetchens were 
swarming about the yard below and through the cham- 
bers of the monastery proper. The only way out of 
the buildings the monks had set aside for us was 
through passages or windows leading directly into the 
yard. We heard one band of Tchetchens breaking in 



172 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

the door that opened into the rooms on the floor below 
us. We crowded into a corner and waited, trembling, 
too frightened even to pray. 

The Tchetchens climbed the stone stairway. They 
were cursing their ill fortune at not having found us. 
One of them pushed in the door of the room in which 
we had gathered. The moon was shining through the 
windows and the bandits saw us. Then the spell of 
our silent fear was broken — we screamed. In an in- 
stant the Tchetchen band came pouring into the room. 

They called terrible jests to each other. Arousiag 
and I were kneeling, with our arms around each other. 
A Tchetchen caught my hair in one hand and that of 
Arousiag in the other and dragged us down the stair- 
way. The others were either dragged out in the same 
way or carried into the yard tossed across a Tche- 
tchen's shoulder. 

About the steps of the chapel we saw the bodies of 
the monks. All had been driven out of the chapel into 
the moonlight and then killed. The Tchetchens 
dragged us outside the monastery gate. They then 
gathered up their horses and drove them into the yard, 
where they could be left for the night. Then the 
Tchetchens returned to us. 

Each claimed the girl or girls he had captured and 
dragged through the yard. Those who were not sat- 
isfied with their prizes, in comparing their beauty with 
those who had fallen to the lot of others, quarreled. 



THE RAID ON THE MONASTERY I73 

Little Arousiag's arm was broken when one Tchetchen, 
seeing that the bandit who had captured us had two 
girls, pulled her away from him. Her captor paid 
no attention to her screams of pain. He subdued her 
by twisting her broken arm until she was unconscious. 
When daylight came and the Tchetchens could see 
our faces more plainly they selected those whom they 
considered the prettiest, and killed the rest. They 
killed Arousiag because of her broken arm. Then they 
lifted us onto their horses and took us to Diyarbekir. 



CHAPTER X 

THE GAME OF THE SWORDS, AND DIYARBEKIR 

From the edge of a sandy plateau I caught my first 
view of Diyarbekir, once the capital of our country. 
For two days we had ridden with the Tchetchens. 
We knew that some new peril awaited us in this an- 
cient city which, centuries before, had been one of the 
most glorious cities of Christ. 

When the Tchetchens drew up at the edge of the 
plateau, the walls of the city spread out far below us, 
with here and there a minaret rising over the low 
roofs. Just beyond the city was the beautiful, blue 
Tigris — the River Hiddekel, of the Bible. And as 
far as I could see, dotting the great plains that are 
watered by the Tigris, were Christian refugees from 
the north and east and west, thousands and thousands 
of them. Some had walked hundreds of miles. 
Nearly all the Armenians who were permitted to live 
that long were brought to Diyarbekir, where those who 
were not massacred in the city or outside the walls 
were turned south into the Syrian and Arabian deserts, 
to be deserted there. 

More than one million of my people were started 

174 



THE GAME OF THE SWORDS, AND DIYARBEKIR 1 75 

toward Diyarbekir when the deportations and massa- 
cres began. Only 100,000, I have heard, lived to reach 
the ancient city on the Tigris. And of these more 
than half were massacred within the city and outside 
the walls. Only young women and some of the chn 
dren were saved, and these were lost in harems, or, as 
with the children, placed in Dervish monasteries to be 
taught Mohammedanism, so they might be sold as 
slaves when they grew up. 

Nail Pasha, the Vali of Diyarbekir, was very 
wicked. Inside the city there are several ancient 
forts, built centuries ago — one of them in the days 
of Mohammed, and two great prisons. Already more 
than 3,000 Russian prisoners of war had been marched 
from the Caucasus to Diyarbekir for confinement in 
these prisons. Nail Pasha had taken away all the 
clothing of these prisoners, and had compelled them, by 
refusing to give them food, to work as masons on a 
large house the pasha was building for himself. 

When the refugees began to arrive at Diyarbekir in 
great numbers Nail Pasha crowded the Russians into 
one of the fortresses so closely they had almost no 
room to lie down at night. The other prisons he then 
filled with the Armenian men who had been permitted 
to accompany their women from some of the smaller 
Armenian villages in the north. When the prisons 
were full of these exiles he had his soldiers massacre 
them. Outside the city their women waited on the 



I76 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

plains or were taken away without even being told 
what had been the fate of their husbands, sons and 
brothers. 

When more Russian prisoners arrived Nail Pasha 
crowded Armenians into the prisons in the daytime and 
killed them, and then compelled the Russians to carry 
out the bodies and remove the blood before they could 
lie down to rest from their day's labor in the fields or 
on the stonework of his new house. The soldiers of 
Nail Pasha told with great enjoyment how the bodies 
of little Armenian children had been mixed in with 
cement and built into the walls of the new house to 
fill the spaces between the stones. 

The Tchetchens who had stolen us from the mon- 
astery decided to enter the city by its southern gate — 
where the walls reach down almost to the river banks. 
But when they had galloped around that way sol- 
diers from the gate came out and told them the Vali 
had issued orders that no more refugees were to be 
brought into the city until some of those already within 
the walls were " cleared out "— massacred or sent 
away. 

Afterward I learned why the city itself was crowded 
with refugees while so many others were camped 
outside the walls. The Vali promised protection 
from further deportation to all who had managed to 
preserve enough money to bribe him. These he al- 
lowed to go within the city and occupy deserted houses. 



THE GAME OF THE SWORDS, AND DIYARBEKIR IJJ 

When their money ran out the " protection " ceased, 
and they were sent out of the city in little companies — 
always to be killed at the gates by Tchetchens, who had 
been notified to wait for them. 

When the Tchetchens saw they could not enter the 
city with us at once, they lifted us from their horses 
and ordered us to sit in a circle so they could guard 
us easily. Of the two hundred in the monastery, only 
twenty-seven of us still lived. Three of the girls were 
younger than I. None was more than twenty, al- 
though several had been brides when the massacres 
came. 

The bandit leader then went into the city by himself. 
All that day, and the next, and most of the day after 
that, we sat in the sand in the burning sun. The Tche- 
tchens foraged bread and berries and gave us just a 
little of what they did not want themselves. Only 
once each day would they let us have water. On the 
second day one of the girls became hot with fever. 
She cried for water, and when a Tchetchen would have 
slapped her for her cries she showed him her tongue, 
which had begun to swell. When the Tchetchen saw 
this he called to his comrades, and they were afraid 
lest the fever spread to others of us. They paid no 
attention to the poor girl's pleading for water, but 
dragged her a hundred feet away and left her. Once 
she got to her feet and seemed to be trying to get back 
to us. A Tchetchen went out to her and struck her 



I78 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

down with the end of his gun. She could not get up 
again, and we saw her rolling about in the sand until 
she died. 

On the evening of our second day of waiting out- 
side the walls there was a great commotion at the city's 
southern gate, and presently a stream of refugees, all 
women, came pouring out onto the plain. All that 
day groups of Tchetchen horsemen had been gathering 
from the surrounding country and taking up positions 
nearby. Now we knew why these horsemen had come 
— they had been notified a company of refugees was to 
be sent out of the city. 

The Turks themselves seldom massacred women in 
a wholesale way. Constantinople had not authorized 
the killing of submissive women — the work was left 
to Kurds and other bands. 

I think there must have been more than 2,000 women 
and some children in this company. They began to 
come out of the gate before sundown, and were still 
coming long after it was dark. The Tchetchens 
herded them into a circle about one mile from the 
walls. They were half a mile or more from us, but 
when the moon came up we could plainly hear the 
shouts and screams that told us the Tchetchens had 
begun their evil work. 

All night long we heard the screams. Sometimes 
they would be very near, as if fugitives were coming 
our way. Then we would hear shouts and the hoof- 



THE GAME OF THE SWORDS, AND DIYARBEKIR 179 

beats of horses. There would be piercing shrieks and 
then only the sound of hoofbeats growing fainter. 
The Tchetchens who guarded us did not bother us, 
they seemed to be saving us for something else. But 
we could not sleep that night. Sometimes even now 
I cannot sleep, although I am safe forever. Those 
screams come to me in the night time, and even with 
my friends all about me I cannot shut them out of 
my ears. 

When the first gray mist of dawn spread over the 
plain the excitement was still at its height. Then, sud- 
denly, everything was quiet. We were too far from 
the city to hear the voices on the minarets, but we knew 
that silence meant that the hour for the Prayer of 
Islam had arrived. Even in the midst of their awful 
work the Tchetchens instinctively heard the call and 
stopped to kneel toward Mecca. I remember how I 
wondered that morning, while the bandits were recit- 
ing their prayer to their Allah for his grace and com- 
mendation, how my Christ would feel if His people 
should come to Him in prayer at the sunrise after 
such a night's work as that. 

More than ever before I loved Jesus Christ and 
trusted Him that morning while the Mohammedan 
bandits were praying to him they call Allah. 

I think less than 300 of that company of Armenians 
were alive when the sun came up and we could see 
across the plain. One little group we saw moving 



l80 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

about, huddled together. All around them were the 
Tchetchens searching the bodies scattered over a 
great circle — making sure in the daylight they had 
missed nothing of value in the massacre and robbery 
during the night. 

During the morning the Tchetchens busied them- 
selves with the young women who had been permitted 
to survive the night. We could see them go up to the 
little group of survivors and drag some of them away. 

It was when the Tchetchens began to tire of this 
that we saw them preparing, a little way from where 
we were, in a flat place on the plain, for one of the 
pastimes for which wild Circassian tribes are famous, 
and which they frequently repeated, as I afterward 
learned, as long as my people lasted. 

They planted their swords, which were the long, 
slender-bladed swords that came from Germany, in a 
long row in the sand, so the sharp pointed blades rose 
out of the ground as high as would be a very small 
child. When we saw these preparations all of us knew 
what was going to happen. When Armenian children 
are bad their mothers sometimes tell them the Tche- 
tchens will come and get them if they don't be good. 
And when the children ask, " And when the Tche- 
tchens come, what will they do ? " their mothers say : 

" The Tchetchens are very wicked robber horsemen, 
who like to sharpen their swords with little boys and 
girls." 



THE GAME OF THE SWORDS, AND DIYARBEKIR l8l 

Already I was trembling with sickness of heart be- 
cause of the awful night before and the things I had 
seen that morning when daylight came. The other 
women beside me were trembling, too, and felt as if 
they would rather die than see any more. We begged 
our Tchetchens to take us away — to take us where we 
could not look upon those sword blades — but they 
only laughed at us and told us we must watch and be 
thankful to them we were under their protection. 

When the long row of swords had been placed the 
Tchetchens hurried back to the little band of Arme- 
nians. We saw them crowd among them, and then 
come away carrying, or dragging, all the young women 
who were left — maybe fifteen or twenty — I could 
not count them. 

Each girl was forced to stand with a dismounted 
Tchetchen holding her on her feet, half way between 
two swords in the long row. The captives cried and 
begged, but the cruel bandits were heedless of their 
pleadings. 

When the girls had been placed to please them, one 
between each two sword blades, the remaining Tche- 
tchens mounted their horses and gathered at the end 
of the line. At a shouted signal the first one galloped 
down the row of swords. He seized a girl, lifted her 
high in the air and flung her down upon a sword point, 
without slackening his horse. 

It was a game — a contest ! Each Tchetchen tried 



1 82 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

to seize as many girls as he could and fling them upon 
the sword points, so that they were killed in the one 
throw, in one gallop along the line. Only the most 
skillful of them succeeded in impaling more than one 
girl. Some lifted the second from the ground, but 
missed the sword in their speed, and the girl, with 
broken bones or bleeding wounds, was held up in the 
line again to be used in the " game " a second time — 
praying that this time the Tchetchen's aim would be 
true and the swprd put an end to her torture. 

In the meantime the Jews of Diyarbekir had come 
out from the city, driven by gendarmes, to gather up 
the bodies of the slain Armenians. They brought 
carts and donkeys with bags swung across their backs. 
Into the carts and bags they piled the corpses and took 
them to the banks of the Tigris, where the Turks made 
them throw their burdens into the water. This is one 
of the persecutions the Jews were forced to bear. 
The Mohammedans did not kill them, but they liked to 
compel them to do such awful tasks. 

Late in the afternoon the chief of our Tchetchens 
came out from the city. His men drew off to one side 
and talked with him excitedly. When it grew dark 
they lifted us upon their horses and carried us into 
the city through the south gate. At the gate the 
Tchetchen chief showed to the officers of the gen- 
darmes a paper he had brought from the city, and the 
Tchetchens were permitted to enter. We passed 



THE GAME OF THE SWORDS, AND DIYARBEKIR 183 

through dark narrow streets until we came to a house 
terraced high above the others, with an iron gate lead- 
ing into a courtyard off the street. A hammal, or 
Turkish porter, was waiting at the gate and swung it 
open. 

The bandits dismounted outside the gate to the 
house and lifted us to the ground. The leader waved 
us inside. With half a dozen of his men he entered 
behind us and the gate closed. Some of the Tche- 
tchens went into the house. In a few minutes they 
came out, followed by a foreign man, whose uniform 
I recognized as that of a German soldier. 

Servants followed with lighted lamps, and the sol- 
dier looked into our faces and examined us shame- 
fully. Only eight of the girls pleased him. I was 
among these. We were pushed into the house and 
the door was closed behind us. Then we heard the 
Tchetchens gather up the other girls and take them 
into the street. I do not know what became of them. 

The soldier and the servants, all of whom were for- 
eigners, whom I afterward discovered were Germans, 
took us into a stone floored room which had been used 
as a stable for horses. 

It must have been two or three hours afterward — 
after midnight, I think ; we could not keep track of the 
time — when the soldier and the servants came for us. 
Before they took us from the stable room they took 
away what few clothes we had. They led us, afraid 



184 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

and ashamed, into a room where were three men in the 
uniforms of German officers. The soldiers saluted 
them. The officers seemed very pleased when they 
had looked at us. We tried to cover ourseives with 
our arms and to hide behind each other, but the soldier 
roughly drew us apart. The officers laughed at our 
embarrassment, and then dismissed the soldier, saying 
something to him in German, which I do not under- 
stand. 

The officers talked among themselves, also in Ger- 
man. They tried to caress us. It amused them 
greatly when we pleaded with them to spare us, to let 
us have clothes and to have mercy, in God's name. 

Almost two weeks I was a prisoner in this house. 
The principal officer's name was Captain August Wal- 
senburg. He was middle-aged, I think, and very bald. 
After awhile I learned many things about him. He 
had been connected with a German trading company, 
the " Oriental Handelsgellschaft," in the city of Van. 

He was a reserve army officer and had been called 
into service. He helped the Turkish officials at Van 
mobilize an army there and had taken part in the Ar- 
menian massacres at that city. He had been ordered 
to report to a German general whose name I do not 
remember at Aleppo, where the German commander 
was organizing Turkish soldiers for the Mesopotamian 
armies. But when he reached Diyarbekir there was 
news of the Russian advance in the Caucasus, and he 



THE GAME OF THE SWORDS, AND DIYARBEKIR 185 

had been ordered, by telegraph, to wait at Diyarbekir 
for instructions. The two other officers were lieu- 
tenants, who had accompanied him from Van, and 
they, too, were awaiting instructions. 

They were the only German officers at Diyarbekir 
at that time. The Vali was very friendly with them. 
He had set aside for them the house to which we were 
taken as captives. To this house were brought many 
pretty Armenian girls stolen by the Kurds and 
Tchetchens. When they tired of them they sent them 
away to the refugee camps outside the city or to be 
sold to Turks. 

The German captain asked me to be submissive. I 
fought him with all my might. I told him he might 
kill me. This amused him. It was while I was his 
prisoner I tasted, for the first and only time in my life 
that which I have learned in America is called 
" whiskey " It was bitter and terrible. The officers 
had brought some of this from Van. They drank 
much of it, and it made them very brutal. One night 
they assembled all the girls in the house into a room 
where they were eating and forced them to sit on a 
table and drink this awful whiskey. They were de- 
lighted when it made us ill. 

One by one the other girls who had been stolen with 
me from the monastery were sent away, after the 
officers had wearied of them, and their places were 
taken by new ones. I think I was kept because I 



l86 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

fought so hard when one of them approached me. 
The captain always clapped his hands and laughed 
aloud when I fought. 

There was another girl, who had been a prisoner 
in the house longer than others — since before I was 
taken there. She had especially pleased one of the 
under-officers. She told me of one night when the 
officers had taken much of their whiskey and were 
particularly cruel. She said they sent for some of the 
girls then in the house and, standing them sideways, 
shot at them with their pistols, using their breasts as 
targets. Afterward I was told this thing was done 
very often by the Turks in the Vilayet of Van when 
they massacred our people there. 

At last orders came to the officers to leave Diyar- 
bekir. I understood they would have to go to Har- 
pout. They prepared to leave immediately and set 
out the next morning. They had in the house many 
rugs and articles of valuable jewelry they had bought 
from Kurds and Tchetchens, who had stolen them 
from Armenians, and all of this booty they carefully 
packed in boxes to be kept for them by the Vali until 
a caravan bound for the railway at Ras-el-Ain came 
through. 

They were so hurried they paid little attention to 
us. When they left all their servants accompanied 
them, riding donkeys behind their masters' horses. 
So we were alone in the house. 



THE GAME OF THE SWORDS, AND DIYARBEKIR 187 

We would have been happy in our deliverance had 
it not been for the danger which threatened us at the 
hands of the Turkish gendarmes, who would be sure 
to discover us. We searched until we found where 
the servants had hidden our clothes in a dark room, 
into which the clothes of all Armenian girls who had 
been brought to the house had been thrown. We each 
took something with which to cover ourselves. 

We spent a day and night in constant terror of dis- 
covery. We were afraid to venture into the streets 
and afraid to stay where we were. There were many 
foreign missionaries in the city, including Americans, 
but they lodged in a different quarter, and we never 
could have reached them. The gendarmes came the 
third day after the officers left. I do not think they 
expected to find any one in the house, but came to 
look for things the Germans might have left un- 
packed. 

We saw them entering through the courtyard gate. 
There was no place we could hide, as the house was 
built in tiers. We could only huddle in a corner and 
put off our capture till the last minute. The gen- 
darmes saw us from the courtyard and rushed after us 
with shouts. 

When I ran through the room that had been occu- 
pied by one of the officers I saw a knife he had left 
behind. I seized this and hid it in my clothes. It was 
the first time I had held a knife in my hands or other 



l88 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

weapon since I was taken from my home in Tchemesh- 
Gedzak. 

A gendarme cornered me in one of the rooms, just 
as all the other girls were trapped. He caught me 
by the arms. He was taking me into another room 
when the officer of the gendarmes saw me. He halted 
the man, took me from him and ordered him to " find 
another one for himself." The officer pushed me into 
the room. 

But when he tried to pinion my arms I turned on 
him with the knife. I know God guided my hand, for 
I am sure I killed him. He fell at my feet. 

In other parts of the house and in the courtyard the 
gendarmes were giving their attention to the girls they 
had found. I reached the street without being seen. 
I looked in each direction and could see no one except 
a Turkish woman, who came out of her gate on the 
opposite side of the street. For an instant I thought 
I would be caught, and I gripped the knife, which I 
still kept under my clothes. 

But the Turkish woman was kind. She pitied me. 
She stepped back into her gate and motioned me to 
follow. I was afraid, yet I trusted her. She closed 
the gate and took me in her arms. She was sorry for 
me and my people, she said, and would help me. But 
she darec} not take me into her house. She told me 
I could hide in her yard till night, when I might, slip 
out of the city to where the refugees were. 



THE GAME OF THE SWORDS, AND DIYARBEKIR 189 

During the day she brought me food. At dark she 
came to take leave of me, and kissed me, and gave me 
three liras, which was all she could spare without 
earning a scolding from her husband. " Go out by the 
north gate, not by the south gate," she said to me. 
" All the refugees who are taken around by the south 
gate are killed; those who are camped beyond the 
north gate may live. But do not join them while it 
still is night, or you may be caught in a massacre. 
Hide among the rocks in the pass through the Kara- 
jah hills, a mile from the city. If the Armenians are 
allowed to pass these rocks when they are taken away, 
it means they will be allowed to live through another 
stage of their journey." 

I reached the south gate without being stopped, as 
I was careful to keep in the shadows. Gendarmes 
guarded the gate, but they were not very watchful. I 
ran onto the plain and followed the directions the 
friendly Turkish lady had given me until I came to 
the rocks which marked the road through the low hills 
that skirted the city on the north. Along this road 
the refugees sent to the southern deserts from Diyar- 
bekir must pass. 

I waited at the rocks through the night. In the 
morning I thought to walk along the road to where I 
would not be seen by soldiers, Kurds or Tchetchens 
roving on the plains near the city, and where I could 
wait until a company of my people passed. 



190 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

But while I was picking my way through the narrow 
pass between the rocks I saw a little group of zaptiehs 
coming toward me along the road beyond. I had not 
expected to meet any one. I screamed before I could 
stop myself. The zaptiehs heard me and I ran back 
into the shelter of the rocks and drew out my knife, 
which I had kept so I might kill myself rather than 
be stolen again. But I was afraid God would not 
approve. While the zaptiehs searched the rocks I 
knelt in a crevice and asked God to tell me what I 
should do — if He would blame me if I killed myself 
before the zaptiehs found me. " Dear God, tell me, 
shall I come now to You or wait until You call ? " I 
asked of Him. 

I know He heard me, and I know He answered. 
For something told me to throw the knife far away — 
and I did. 

That was God's will, I know, for after awhile He 
was to lead me into the arms of my mother that I 
might be with her once again before the Turks killed 
her. 



CHAPTER XI 

" ISHIM YOK ; KEIFIM TCHOK ! " 

I threw the knife away and stood up. The zap- 
tiehs soon found me. I was resigned for whatever 
was to happen, and did not run from them. 

I told them I had come out from the city; that I 
wanted to join some of my people; that if they would 
not harm me I would not give them any trouble. I 
still had the three liras, or three pounds, which the 
good Turkish lady had given me, but I knew if I gave 
it to them they would only search me for more and 
then, perhaps, kill me. So I told them I would get 
money for them from my people if they would let me 
join a company that was not to be killed. 

" Maybe all will be killed ; maybe not all. We do 
not know. Come with us. Get us money and we 
will let you live," one of them said to me. 

I walked with them a little ways, until we saw com- 
ing toward us a long line of refugees. Then the zap- 
tiehs halted, and from what they said to each other I 
knew they had been sent from a village a little way 
behind us to join the guards escorting this party. 

Soon the party drew near. The zaptiehs said I 

191 



192 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

must stay near the front of the line, and that they 
would come after a while and hunt for me, and that I 
must have money or they would take me off and kill 
me. They came to me a few hours later, and I gave 
them the three liras, and they kept their promise and 
did not molest me again. 

The party of refugees I had joined was from Erze- 
roum and the little cities in that district. My heart 
leaped with joy when I saw among them a few Arme- 
nian men. It was the first time I had seen men of 
my people for so long, and I was so happy for the 
women whose husbands and fathers could still be with 
them. When I was led up to this party by the zap- 
tiehs the first women to see me held out their arms to 
me. They thought I was one of the girls of their own 
party who had been stolen the night before. When I 
told them I had escaped from Diyarbekir they were 
glad for me, and one lady who had lost her sixteen- 
year-old daughter to the Turks said I might take this 
daughter's place and march with her. Another little 
daughter, six years old, was with her still. 

There were two thousand, or a few more, in this 
party. They were all that were left of 40,000 Arme- 
nian families who had been deported from Erzeroum 
and nearby villages. Erzeroum is 150 miles directly 
north of Diyarbekir, but the Armenians there had been 
sent to Diyarbekir in two directions. Some had come 
by way of Erzindjan and Malatia. These had walked 




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ISHIM YOK J KEIFIM TCHOK ! " I93 

almost 300 miles. Others had come by way of 
Khnuss and Bitlis, and these had walked 250 miles. 
The survivors of both parties reached Diyarbekir at 
almost the same time as those who came by way of 
Bitlis had been kept for many days at towns along 
the route. 

The only friend the Armenians at Erzeroum had 
when they were being assembled for deportation was 
the good Badvelli, Robert Stapleton, the American 
vice-consul, whose home is in New York City. Dr. 
Stapleton took all the Armenian girls he could crowd 
into his house at Erzeroum, and when the Turks came 
for them he showed the Turks the American flag over 
his door, and ordered them away. There were many 
mothers in this party when I joined it who were glad 
their daughters had been among those who were left 
under Dr. Stapleton's protection, and they wondered 
if they still were safe. 

Many months later I learned the good American 
Badvelli kept them all safely until the Russians came 
to Erzeroum and took them under their care. 

There were almost 75,000 men, women and children 
in the parties that went by way of Erzindjan. Of 
these only 500 reached Diyarbekir. All the prettiest 
and youngest girls had been stolen by the Kurds or 
zaptiehs and given to Turks along the way. The girl 
children under ten years old had all been either killed, 
if they were not strong and pretty, or sold to the 



194 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

Turks, who kept them to raise as Moslems for their 
harems or sent them to Constantinople to be sold into 
the harems of wealthy Turks there. Many of the 
younger women who were not stolen had been out- 
raged to death. All the grandmothers and women 
who were ill had been abandoned at the roadside, or 
killed outright. So only the 500 remained. 

Of the other parties, which had numbered 50,000 
individuals, and who had mostly come from the 
smaller cities near Erzeroum, with many rich families, 
including teachers, bankers, merchants and profes- 
sional men from the city itself among them, only 1,500 
were left — about 300 men, I think. 

When the different parties recognized each other in 
camp outside Diyarbekir, they rejoiced greatly, and 
they were allowed to move their camps together. 
They remained outside Diyarbekir eleven days, be- 
cause all of them had been robbed of their money and 
all valuables, so they could bribe the Vali to let them 
stay inside the city. 

Each night while they were camped outside Diyar- 
bekir Turks came forth from the city to steal girls, and 
soldiers came out to borrow girls and young women 
for a little while. They had no food except one loaf 
of bread for each person, every other day, sent out by 
the Vali, and occasionally something which Amer- 
ican missionaries in the city managed to smuggle out 
to them by bribing Turkish water carriers. 



" ISHIM YOK ; KEIFIM TCHOK ! " 195 

During the night, while I was hiding in the rocks, 
they were told they were to be taken away again in the 
morning, this time to Ourfa. They had begged the 
Turkish officers to let them stay a while longer, be- 
cause so many of them were suffering with swollen 
feet, which had grown more painful, even to bursting, 
during their eleven days of rest. They asked to be 
allowed to wait until their feet were better again, but 
the Turks would not grant this. 

So they had started early in the morning, and now I 
was with them, and before me lay the long walk to 
Ourfa, 200 miles further toward the Arabian deserts 
— unless I suffered the harder fate of being stolen 
again along the way. 

For the first time since I had been taken from my 
home that Easter Sunday morning, so many weeks 
before, I learned, when I joined this party on the way 
to Ourfa, where my people were being taken — those 
who were allowed to live. Soldiers who went out to 
the refugee camps from Diyarbekir had told these 
exiles that all who reached Aleppo, a large city on the 
Damascus railway, were to be taken from there to the 
Der-el-Zor district, on the southern Euphrates, and 
there put to building military roads through the deserts. 
As only a few men lived to reach there, the strong 
women were to be used. 

But always there was hope of deliverance. So 
many Armenians had friends in America, sons and 



I96 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

brothers who had left our country to go to the won- 
derful United States. They prayed every night that 
from America would come help before all were dead. 
There were rumors even then that help was coming; 
that good people in the United States were sending 
money and food and clothing and trying to get the 
Turks to be more merciful. It was this hope that kept 
thousands alive. 

When I joined this party it could only move along 
very slowly, because of swollen feet. When we came 
to the rocks where I had been discovered it was very 
painful for those whose feet were broken open to pass 
between them, because the pass was very narrow and 
the stones sharp. For more than a mile we had to 
walk along this rocky defile — then we came into the 
open again. I had a pair of sandals, with leather 
bottoms, which I had saved from the house of the 
Germans. These I gave to the lady who had asked 
me to march with her, for her own feet were bleeding. 
No one else in the party had shoes or slippers or any 
covering for their feet, except rags which some could 
spare from their clothing. 

Outside Diyarbekir some of the refugees had traded 
laces which they had saved by wrapping them around 
their bodies, for donkeys and arabas (ox carts). They 
had been told they might keep these until they reached 
Ourfa. In the arabas they had hidden many small 
pieces of bread which they had saved from their occa- 



"ishim yok; keifim tchok!" 197 

sional rations at Diyarbekir, hoping thus to provide 
against the sufferings of starvation along the road. 
But when they reached the rocks the pass was so nar- 
row there was great trouble getting the arabas through. 

Some Turkish villagers from the other side had 
come to the rocks, and when they saw the trouble the 
refugees were having with their arabas they asked 
the zaptiehs guarding us why they could not have the 
donkeys and the carts. The zaptiehs told them if they 
would give some money to be divided among the 
guards they could take them. 

So the villagers paid money to the zaptiehs and then 
swooped down upon us and took away our animals and 
carts. They would not. allow us to take what few 
belongings were in the carts, and the pieces of bread, 
saying they had bought everything the carts contained 
from the zaptiehs. 

In one of the carts were two little girl twins, nine 
years old, whose mother had died at Diyarbekir. They 
were being taken care of by their aunt, who had three 
times bribed soldiers to let them alone, until she had 
nothing more to bribe with. She had hidden them in 
her araba, thinking she could save them and spare 
them the weary walking. The villagers who took her 
cart refused to let her take them out. He said they 
went with the cart. 

The woman was crazed, and screamed loudly. She 
attacked the villagers with her hands. An Armenian 



I98 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

man was near, and he and many women rushed at the 
Turk, who was alone. Three zaptiehs rushed up, but 
the women and the man were determined, and the 
zaptiehs were afraid to help the villagers. They told 
him to let the aunt have the two little girls. 

Although there were about 2,000 refugees in this 
party, I could count only eleven zaptiehs sent along 
as guards. As many men as could be spared by the 
Turks at Diyarbekir had been sent north to the army, 
and the supply of guards for refugees was very short. 
Had there been more zaptiehs they would not have 
hindered the Turk from stealing the little girls. 

At the next village the zaptiehs decided they would 
have to have more help if they were to enjoy the 
license customary among them along the road. At this 
village they stopped us and held a long conversation 
with the Mudir, or village chief. Soon after the Mudir 
approached, followed by twenty or thirty of the most 
evil looking Turks I ever saw. Each one of them car- 
ried a gun and wore on his sleeve a strip of red woolen 
cloth, the badge of police authority. 

When we went on these Turks were distributed 
among us by the zaptiehs as additional guards. 

During the second day upon the road we met a party 
of mounted Turkish soldiers, escorting a group of 
very comfortable looking covered arabas, such as are 
used by the wealthy for traveling in the interior of 
Turkey. In these arabas there were forty hanums, 



" ISHIM YOK J KEIFIM TCHOK ! " I99 

or Turkish wives, who were on their way with the 
soldier escort to Erzeroum, to join their husbands, who 
were high military officers with the army in the great 
military fortress there. They had come from Damas- 
cus, Beirut and Aleppo. 

When our party approached, the arabas of the 
hanums halted, and the soldiers ordered our guards 
to halt us also. Then we saw that several of the 
arabas were occupied by young Armenian girls, from 
eight to twelve years old, all very sweet and gentle 
looking, as if they were the daughters of wealthy fam- 
ilies. Some of them waved their little hands from 
under the curtains, and that is how we discovered them. 
From six to ten were crowded in each of their arabas, 
and each of the hanum's arabas hid others. 

The little girls told us they were from Ourfa and 
Aleppo. Their parents and relatives all had been 
killed, and they had been given to the hanums, who, 
they understood, intended to put a part of them in 
Moslem schools at Erzeroum, so they could have them 
for sale when they were a little older. The others the 
hanums would keep as servants or to sell at once to 
friends among rich Turks. 

The hanums descended from their arabas and asked 
our zaptiehs if there were any very pretty girl children 
among us. The zaptiehs did not approve of losing 
girl children to these Turkish wives, who, they 
thought, would take them without paying for them. 



200 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

So they said there were none. But one of the hanums 
saw a little girl holding onto her mother, and insisted 
upon having her brought to her. When she looked at 
the little girl closely she saw she was pretty, and com- 
manded one of the soldiers to take her into her car- 
riage. 

The child's mother held onto it desperately, and when 
the hanoum, with her soldier near, put her hands on 
the little girl to pull it away the mother lost her reason 
and struck at her. 

The soldier immediately caught hold of the woman 
and asked of the hanum, " What shall I do with her? " 
The hanum said, "Have we any oil to burn her?" 
The soldier said, " I do not think so." Then the 
hanum held out her hand and the soldier gave her his 
pistol. The Turkish woman went up to the mother 
and shot her with her own hands. She then caught the 
little girl's hand and led her to the arabas. The little 
one wanted to kiss her mother, but the hanum jerked 
her away. 

With our party was the wife of Abouhayatian Agha, 
the great scholar, of Van, who had escaped, when the 
massacres began, to Diyarbekir. Her husband had 
been a friend of Djevdet Bey. When the soldiers were 
turned loose upon the Armenians at Van, so Mrs. 
Abouhayatian told me, her husband went to Djevdet 
Bey and remonstrated with him. His reply, now 
famous all over Turkey, was : 



" ISHIM YOK ; KEIFIM TCHOK ! " 201 

v Ishim yok ; Keifim tchok," which means, " I have 
no work to do ; I have much fun ! " After that, 
whenever regular soldiers were sent to slaughter Ar- 
menians, they called out to each other : 

" Ishim yok ; keifim tchok ! " 

Over this same path I walked, more than 400,000 of 
my people had trod — some of them having walked a 
thousand miles or more to get there. And of these, 
sole survivors of the millions who were deported from 
their homes, those who are alive to-day are lost in the 
deserts, where there is no bread or food. 

God grant that I may soon go back to this desert, 
from which I escaped, with money and food for those 
of my people who may still be alive ! 

When we camped near a village at night our zap- 
tiehs would invite the village gendarme and his friends 
to come out, and they would sell young women to them 
for the night. The mother or other relatives of these 
young women dared not even object, for if they did 
the zaptiehs would kill them. Sometimes there would 
be better class Turks in some of these villages, and 
they would pick out girl children and buy them. They 
would pay our guards for the child they fancied and 
take it out of its mother's arms. These children now 
are being taught to be Moslems, and, if they are old 
enough, made to work in the fields. Some of them are 
concubines besides. 

Three babies were born during the first days of this 



202 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

journey. The mothers were not allowed to rest along 
the way, neither before nor after. They were made to 
keep up with the party until the little ones were born. 
Sometimes the men would carry the mother a little way, 
but when the zaptiehs saw them doing this they would 
make them put her down. They would say the woman 
didn't deserve to be carried because she was bringing 
an unbeliever into the world. 

These events always amused the zaptiehs greatly. 
When one of them discovered a baby was about to be 
born he would call his comrades, and they would walk 
near the poor woman, making her keep on her feet 
until the last minute. Then they would stand close 
to her and laugh and jest. As soon as the baby was 
born the mother would have to get upon her feet and 
walk. If she could not walk the zaptiehs would leave 
her on the road and make the party move on. 

Almost always the zaptiehs killed the babies. The 
first two born near me they took from the mothers 
and threw up in the air and caught them like a ball. 
They did this four or five times and then threw them 
away. The mothers saw, but they had to walk on. 
The third baby was not killed. It was born in the 
evening, just after we had camped. The zaptiehs 
were busy with their horses and did not notice. This 
one was a sweet little boy. Its father was dead. Its 
mother was so happy — and so sad, both together — 
when she first held it in her arms. She asked God to 



" ISHIM YOK J KEIFIM TCHOK ! " 203 

let it live, but there was no way. She had had so little 
food herself she could not nurse it. The little thing 
starved to death in her arms. 

When we left the district where the villages were 
we began to suffer for water. The zaptiehs carried 
great water bags over their saddles, but they would 
give none of it to us. For days at a time we marched 
without a drop of moisture to quench our thirst. Then 
we would come to a group of houses where Turks 
lived around a well, or spring. The Turks always 
would refuse to let us go near the wells, demanding 
pay for each gourd of water. Men would stand guard 
at the wells with guns and sticks to drive us off if we 
went near. 

But no one in our party had anything left to pay 
with. Our women would go as near to the houses as 
they dared, and get down on their knees and beg for 
just a swallow of the precious water. Sometimes the 
Turks would let us go to the wells when they were 
convinced we had nothing to give them. But not al- 
ways. At one place the head man, who had been a 
pilgrim and was called Hadji, demanded that if we 
could not give him money or rugs, we must give him 
for the community three strong men who could help 
till the fields which were watered from his spring. 

We appealed to our guards, but they would not take 
our part. They stood by the Turks, and said if we 
wanted water we should be willing to pay. At least 



204 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

thirty of our party had died that day for want of drink. 
Some of the women's tongues were so swollen they 
could not talk. There was talk of rushing on the 
spring in a body, but we knew this would cost many 
lives, for our zaptiehs stood near with their guns, and 
we knew, too, it would be held against us and probably 
cause a massacre. 

Finally Harutoune Yegarian, who had been a student 
at Erzeroum, said he would sacrifice himself. He 
asked if there were two other men who would give 
themselves. Two men whose wives had died, and 
who had no daughters, at once said they were willing. 
Many women embraced them. Harutoune was stand- 
ing near me, and I cried for him. He saw me. 

" Don't weep for me, little girl," he said to me. 
" Every Armenian in the world should be glad to give 
himself for his people.' , Then he kissed me, and I 
think his kiss was the kiss of God. 

The three men said they would stay and work in the 
field for the Turks, and so they let us have water — 
all we could drink and carry away. 

When we reached the city of Severeg, half way to 
Ourfa, we had not had water for four days. There 
are three open wells on one side of Severeg, and they 
feed an artificial lake, which was filled when we ar- 
rived. 

Some of our women were so parched they threw 
themselves into the lake and were drowned. Others 



ISHIM YOK J KEIFIM TCHOK ! " 205 

could not wait until they reached the lake, and jumped 
into the wells. 

So many did this they choked the wells, and the 
Turks, who had come out to meet us, had to pull them 
out. We who had kept our senses crowded around 
those who were pulled out and moistened our tongues 
from their wet clothes. 

After we left Severeg a fever attacked our party. 
Every day many died by the wayside. The zaptiehs 
rode at a distance away from us, and when any of the 
men or women dropped behind, they would shoot them. 
The fever parched the throats of those who suffered 
from it so badly that when we came to the next group 
of houses where there was a well the men braved the 
guns of the Turks and zaptiehs and rushed up to them. 

After that the zaptiehs were wary of persecuting us 
too much, but we paid the penalty at Sheitan Deressi, 
or " Devil's Gorge," which we reached on the twenty- 
third day out of Diyarbekir. 

When all our party had entered the gorge the zap- 
tiehs left their horses and climbed above us and opened 
fire upon us. We were trapped so we could not turn 
back and could not escape. The zaptiehs picked off 
all the men. From early morning until dark they 
continued shooting from the walls of the gorge, and 
at each shot a man fell. When evening came all had 
been killed or mortally wounded. 

When night fell the zaptiehs came down and began 



206 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

killing women with their knives and bayonets. They 
picked out the older women first, and soon all these 
were dead. When the moon lighted up the gorge the 
zaptiehs picked out the young married women — or 
those who had been married but now were widows — 
and amused themselves by mutilating them. They 
would not kill them outright, but would cut off their 
fingers, or their hands, or their breasts. They tore out 
the eyes of some. When dawn came only those who 
had succeeded in hiding behind rocks, or we who were 
young and might be sold to Turks, were alive. During 
the next day I counted, and there were only 160 left 
of the 2,000 who left Diyarbekir with me. I have 
heard it said that more than 300,000 of my people were 
killed in this spot during the period of the massacres. 
Now that we were so few the zaptiehs made us 
march faster, and as we were nearly all young they 
were more cruel to us. I was glad that morning when 
I discovered that the lady who had let me march with 
her had survived. She had hid during the night, and 
had saved her little girl too. But my gladness for her 
soon became sorrow. The little girl was taken with 
the fever that day. The next day she could not walk 
any more. When the zaptiehs discovered she was suf- 
fering from the fever they commanded the mother to 
leave her at the roadside. The mother laid the little 
girl down, but she could not leave her when the child 
held out her arms and cried. A zaptieh came up with 



" ISHIM YOK ; KEIFIM TCHOK ! " 2 0J 

his bayonet pointed, ready to kill the mother, and I 
pulled her away and comforted her. Every step or 
two the mother would look back until we could not see 
her little girl any more. 



CHAPTER XII 

REUNION — AND THEN, THE SHEIKH ZILAN 

With so few of us to guard, and almost all of us 
either young or not so very old, the nights were made 
terrible by the zaptiehs. For many days they had 
been on the road with us, and had tired of ordinary 
cruelties and the mere shaming of the girls under 
cover of darkness at the camping places. The Turks 
who had been recruited from the villages and made 
guards over us were especially brutal. It was their 
first opportunity to visit upon Christians that hatred 
with which Islam looks upon the " Unbeliever." 

When we drew near to Our fa we were joined by a 
party numbering, I think, four or five hundred exiles 
from the Sandjak of Marash, a subdistrict north of the 
Amanus, of which Zeitoun, Albustan and Marash are 
the large cities. Nearly all of these were from the 
city of Marash itself — some from Zeitoun. The re- 
moval of the Armenians from the Sandjak of Marash 
was begun later than in other parts of Asia Minor. 
When Haidar Pasha first issued the orders for de- 
portation some of the Armenians who had arms re- 
sisted. They refused to leave or submit to the zap- 

208 



REUNION — AND THEN, THE SHEIKH ZILAN 200, 

tiehs unless they were given guarantees they would be 
allowed to return to their homes after the war. 

Haidar Pasha had few soldiers at his command just 
then. He sent to Aleppo for assistance to carry out 
his wish to send the Armenians away. From Aleppo 
came Captain Schappen, a German artillery officer, 
who was stationed there with other German officers. 
Captain Schappen organized large bodies of zaptiehs 
and taught them the use of machine guns. He then 
led them personally, and with other German officers 
and their aides made a raid on the Armenian houses. 
In quarters where there was resistance he turned the 
machine guns on the houses. 

From Marash and nearby cities fourteen thousand 
of my people, men, women and children, were sent 
away, guarded by the zaptiehs, under the command of 
this captain. For some reason which none of the 
Christians knew, these exiles were not taken directly 
into the desert toward Bagdad, as were others from 
that district, but they were kept many days, even 
weeks at a time, in camp with almost no food or water, 
then to move on only a few miles and to camp again. 
They were many weeks reaching the vicinity of Ourfa. 
When they joined us, of the fourteen thousand who 
were torn from their homes only the three or four 
hundred remained alive ! No men were left — just 
mothers and daughters and aunts and nieces. 

Captain Schappen had returned, after three weeks 



2IO RAVISHED ARMENIA 

on the road, to Aleppo. He took with him a Miss 
Tchilingarian, who was fifteen years old, and who had 
just returned from a private school in Germany, where 
her parents had sent her to be educated. She was 
home on a vacation when the deportation began. She 
was very pretty, those who knew her told me, and 
had already won honors in music. Her family in- 
tended she should become a singer and take to the 
Christian world outside Turkey the beautiful folk 
ballads of my people. Captain Schappen marked her 
during the first night on the road, and had her taken to 
his tent. He then designated a zaptieh to be her espe- 
cial guard until he took her away with him. He also 
took with him Mrs. Sarafian, the young wife of Dr. 
Dikran Sarafian, who had been educated in Switzer- 
land, and was one of the most prominent Armenian 
physicians in central Turkey. Mrs. Sarafian was a 
Swiss, and had learned to love Dr. Sarafian while he 
was a student in her country. She had come to 
Marash to marry him just two years before. Captain 
Schappen had her taken to his tent also, soon after 
they began their march, and when her husband objected 
the officer ordered a zaptieh to shoot him. 

When Captain Schappen and his companions decided 
to return to Aleppo they sent zaptiehs scouring the 
country for miles around looking for donkeys. For 
these the officers traded girl children. A pretty Child 
was given for one donkey. Of the children who were 



REUNION — AND THEN, THE SHEIKH ZILAN 211 

plain the officers gave two, or sometimes three, for a 
single donkey. Thus they collected a large herd of 
donkeys, which probably were needed by the army. 

In another day after this remnant of the Christians 
of Marash joined us, we came into sight of Ourfa. 
We were ordered to camp close to an artificial lake — 
such a lake as often is found outside Moslem cities. 
The leaders of our zaptiehs rode into the city for in- 
structions. Soon Turks, in long white coats, came out 
of the city to look at us. When they saw that ours was 
a party of almost all younger women, with girl chil- 
dren still left, they spread the news in Ourfa, and in a 
little while dozens of Turks came out in little groups 
of four and five. 

They tried to persuade our zaptiehs to let them 
carry away with them the young women and children 
they wanted. The zaptiehs would not permit this, 
however, unless they were paid what was then con- 
sidered high prices for Christian women. They said 
they had brought us this far, and now they intended 
to profit — that they had only permitted us to live 
because they hoped to get " good prices " for the 
choicest of us in the Ourfa market. 

The Turks did not want to pay the high prices, and 
the zaptiehs would not trade with them. The zap- 
tiehs said there was a good market in Ourfa for pretty 
Armenian women, and they preferred to get the 
Mutassarif's permission to hunt purchasers there who 



212 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

would bid against each other. The Turks went back 
to the city disappointed. 

That night, just after sundown, these same Turks 
came out again and opened the sluices that held the 
artificial lake, allowing the water to spread over the 
plain and flood our camp. We had to run as fast as 
we could to scramble to safety, and there was great 
confusion. Even the zaptiehs were caught by sur- 
prise. 

In this confusion the Turks rushed in among us and 
helped themselves to our youngest girls — the prettiest 
children they could seize. We were powerless to save 
them, as each of the Turks carried a heavy stick, with 
which they beat down the mothers or relatives who 
tried to rescue their little ones. By the time we had 
escaped the water and assembled again, and the zap- 
tiehs were recovered from their own panic, the Turks 
were gone — and with them fifteen or twenty beautiful 
little girls. 

Later I learned what was the immediate fate of the 
^children stolen when the lake was opened on us. 
Haidar Pasha had seized the ancient Catholic Arme- 
nian monastery there, and had transformed it into a 
" government school for refugee children." Since I 
have come to America I have learned that when com- 
plaints were made to the Sultan at Constantinople by 
foreign ambassadors of the stealing of children the 
Sultan's officials replied that they were taken as a 



REUNION — AND THEN, THE SHEIKH ZILAN 213 

kindly deed by the government, which wished to place 
them in comfort in the " government school " at Ourfa 
and other cities. 

But this is what the " government school " at Ourfa 
was: 

Haidar Pasha sent his soldiers, under command of 
a bey, to take possession of the monastery, a large 
stone building. They surrounded it and forced the 
monks, among them Father Antone and Father Shirad- 
jian, two priests who were much beloved by Protestant 
as well as Catholic Armenians, to walk in between two 
rows of soldiers. The soldiers closed in behind them 
and marched with them outside the walls of the city. 
Then the soldiers halted and the Bey asked how many 
there were among the monks who were willing to take 
the oath of Islam and forswear Christ. 

When the Bey ceased speaking Father Antone lifted 
his voice with the words of an ancient song of the good 
Saint Thomas Aquinas, and all the monks joined in. 

While they sang the soldiers shot them down — vol- 
ley after volley — until all were dead. The last monk 
to fall died with the words of the song on his lips. 

Haidar Pasha then cleared out the monastery of all 
its relics and religious symbols. Among these were 
some things which were very dear to my people. 
There was, for instance, a piece of the lance which 
pierced the side of Jesus at the Crucifixion. What has 
become of this and other things that were associated 



214 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

with Christ, Himself, and kept by the Fathers in this 
monastery I do not know. It is said they were taken 
to Damascus and placed in a mosque there, to be 
ridiculed by the Moslems. 

When the monastery was cleared Haidar Pasha 
gathered from among the Armenians who were then 
being taken out of the city, a number of Armenian girls 
of the best families and confined them in the monastery. 
He then seized hundreds of Armenian girl children, 
from 7 to 12 years old, and shut them in the monastery, 
to be taught the Moslem religion and raised as Mos- 
lems. He compelled the older girls to teach them the 
beliefs of Islam, under penalty of the most awful 
cruelties. To this monastery then came rich Turks 
from all over Asia Minor to select as many little girls 
as they wished and could buy for their harems — 
where they would grow up to be submissive slaves. 

While we were waiting outside the city for the zap- 
tiehs to dispose of us according to whatever their 
plans might be I saw coming toward us, out of a city 
gate, a company of hamidieh, or Kurd cavalry, with a 
supply train of donkeys and arabas, which indicated 
a long journey ahead. There must have been a full 
regiment of the horsemen, as they filled the plain out- 
side the city while forming their line of march. 

When they drew near, to pass us within a hundred 
yards or so, I saw a little group of women and children 
riding on donkeys and ponies between the lines of 



REUNION — AND THEN, THE SHEIKH ZILAN 215 

horsemen. I recognized these as Armenians. This 
was an unusual sight — Armenians under protection 
instead of under guard. In those days my curiosity 
had been stunted. So many unusual things went on 
about me all the time I had lost my sense of interest 
in anything that did not actually concern me. But 
something seemed to hold my attention to this strange 
looking company. 

I got up from the ground where I was sitting and 
went to the edge of our camp to watch the soldiers 
passing. The first lines went by. The Armenian 
women came nearer. Suddenly all the world about me 
seemed lost in a haze. I rushed in between the horses, 
screaming at the top of my voice : 

" Mother ! Mother ! Mother ! " 

She heard, and little Hovnan, and Mardiros, and 
Sarah heard. Mother slid to the ground as I ran up to 
her. I tried to throw my arms around her neck, while 
my little brothers and sister clung to me. But mother 
caught my arms and held them. Her eyes were closed, 
and she was still and silent. I cried to her to speak to 
me. A terrible fear came over me. Had she gone 
mad? Had she lost her speech? 

I screamed — this time with anguish. Mother 
opened her eyes. 

" Be patient, my daughter," she said, with the dear, 
sweet gentleness for which all our friends had loved 
her. " Be patient, my daughter. I was just talking 



2l6 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

with God — thanking Him that my prayers have come 
true ! " When I had kissed and cried over Hovnan and 
Mardiros and Sarah I looked again into mother's face. 

Little Aruciag — she was not there. Mother saw the 
question in my eyes. 

" Aruciag has gone. She grew tired one day and 
could not keep up. A soldier threw her over a 
precipice ! " 

An officer of the hamidieh came up to learn what was 
happening, why mother and the children had dis- 
mounted to stand in the way of the horsemen. Mother 
explained to him that I was her daughter, who had 
come back to her. She said she wished that I might 
travel with her. The officer was kind. He gave per- 
mission and promised to send another donkey for me 
to ride. 

There were four young Armenian girls with mothers 
and several older women, whose faces bore the marks 
of much suffering. As we rode along mother ex- 
plained to me. 

When I was stolen from her and our party from 
Tchemesh-Gedzak, so many weeks before, she was 
lying at the roadside, cruelly wounded by the soldiers. 
But the thought of the children summoned her back 
to life. Friends cared for her, and the next day when 
the company moved on they carried her in their arms 
until she could walk again. 

She passed Malatia, Geulik and Diyarbekir. At 



REUNION — AND THEN, THE SHEIKH ZILAN 217 

last she reached Ourfa. By this time only eighteen 
were left of the original four thousand exiles from 
Tchemesh-Gedzak. 

At Ourfa there lived my uncle, mother's cousin, 
Ipranos Mardiganian, who had moved from Tche- 
mesh-Gedzak to Ourfa many years ago — before I was 
born. Uncle Ipranos had become very wealthy, and 
had established a great trading business, which had 
branches even in Persia and in Constantinople. 

In the Abdul-Hamid massacres of 1895 Uncle 
Ipranos was persuaded by his powerful Turkish friends 
at Constantinople and in Ourfa to become Mos- 
lem and thus save his life. He pretended to do so, 
and was rewarded with a government position of 
high trust, and rose to high estate among the Moslems. 
He adopted a Turkish name, and was known as Ibrahim 
Agha. Secretly, though, he still prayed to God and 
was Christian. 

Mother remembered him when she reached Ourfa 
with the refugees. She knew he was in the favor of 
the Turks, who no longer looked upon him as Arme- 
nian. She asked one of the soldiers with her party if 
he would take a letter into the city for her, promising 
that if he would deliver the letter secretly he would 
receive pay. The soldier took the letter to Ibrahim 
Agha's house. In it mother appealed to her cousin for 
his assistance in the name of their family, and asked 
him to give some money to the soldier. 



2l8 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

Ibrahim Agha was grieved by mother's letter. He 
sent her word that he would help her. He went at 
once to Haidar Pasha and procured his permission to 
bring mother and her children to his house. Then 
he came for her and took her to his home. In his 
house mother found four Armenian girls. Their 
mothers were deported from Our fa, but before they 
had left the city they had appealed to Ibrahim Agha 
to take their daughters under his protection, thinking 
to save them. He could not refuse, although he en- 
dangered his own life, and had to keep the girls hidden 
from his neighbors. A few older women also were 
in his house, hidden in his cellar. He had taken them 
in from the streets when soldiers were not looking. 

For more than a month mother and the children were 
safe in her cousin's home. Then, one day, Haidar 
Pasha sent him word to come to the government build- 
ing. He returned with heavy heart. Haidar Pasha 
had told him it would not be safe for him to keep his 
relatives in his house any longer ; that many high mili- 
tary officials were in Ourfa, and if some of them should 
hear of refugee Armenians being thus protected all 
might be killed, and both he and Ibrahim Agha suffer. 

But Haidar Pasha offered to obtain from the Turkish 
general at Aleppo military permission for mother and 
the children and the other exiles in his house, of whom 
my uncle now told him, to travel back to their homes 
in the north with soldiers being sent to Moush to join 



REUNION — AND THEN, THE SHEIKH ZILAN 219 

the campaign against the Russians. For this Haidar 
Pasha asked one thousand liras cash — about $5,000 

— and another thousand liras when mother and the 
others had safely reached their homes and had re- 
ceived permission from their home authorities to re- 
main. This permission the Pasha promised to arrange 
also. 

My uncle had to comply. The four girls had no 
homes or relatives in the north, but they had to go, 
too, or be deported and seized by Turks. Mother 
agreed to take them to her home in Tchemesh-Gedzak 

— if they should really reach there alive. 

At Moush an army corps was assembling. The 
Turks had retired before the first advance of the Rus- 
sians through the Caucasus, and Dejevdet Bey, Vali of 
Van, was rallying his armies here for a dash at the 
Russian flanks, which already had reached Van. Sol- 
diers occupied all the houses in Moush, from which 
the Armenians had been ejected, and the hamidieh 
officers believed it would be best for us to be quartered 
outside the city while arrangements were made for the 
rest of our journey. Mother depended upon the 
papers given her by Haidar Pasha to secure for us an 
escort from Moush to Tchemesh-Gedzak — and Ibra- 
him Agha had said Haidar would telegraph the authori- 
ties at Moush to guarantee our safety. 

We stopped at Kurdmeidan, a village a few miles 
outside of Moush, at the foot of Mount Antok. There 



220 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

had been many Armenians in the village, and there was 
an Armenian church. All the Christians had been 
massacred, however, and their homes were occupied 
by mouhajirs — Moslem immigrants from the lost 
provinces in the Balkans. We went into the deserted 
church and prepared to remain there until arrange- 
ments were made for us to leave. The hamidieh offi- 
cers called the village Mudir before them and cautioned 
him that we were to be protected and fed — that we 
were " especially favored by the Porte." 

The villagers treated us kindly — so great is the fear 
of the population of anything " official " or govern- 
mental. Days went by and we did not hear from the 
city. We began to worry. Mother wanted so much 
to see our home again at Tchemesh-Gedzak. " Were 
it not for you and the children," she would say to me, 
" I would be willing to die on my doorstep — if God 
would just let me see our home again!" My poor, 
dear mother! 

We dared not go alone into the city to inquire what 
was to be done for us — we could only wait. 

One night, just after the Moslem prayer, the streets 
of the little city suddenly became crowded with horse- 
men. Some Turkish women who were just outside the 
church rushed in to get out of the way of the horses' 
hoofs. " It is Sheikh Zilan," they said. " The Sheikh 
Zilan of the Belek tribe, who has been called in from 



REUNION — AND THEN, THE SHEIKH ZILAN 221 

the mountains with his thousand Kurds to fight for the 
Turks ! " 

The name of Sheikh Zilan was widely known. His 
horsemen had harried the countryside for many years. 
It was said he frequently made raids with his tribe 
into Persia, and even into the Russian Caucasus before 
the war, to steal women for the secret slave markets in 
European Turkey. 

The tribe was on its way into Moush. Entrance 
would be denied them after dark, they knew, so they 
had decided to camp for the night in Kurdmeidan. 
Some followers of the Sheikh saw the Armenian 
church building, and decided to use it as a stable for the 
horses of the Sheikh and his chiefs. They broke in 
the door while mother and the rest of us crouched in a 
corner. But we could not hide — the Kurds saw us 
and gave the alarm. Soon the church was full of the 
wild tribesmen. 

Mother showed her letters from Haidar Pasha. 
This awed the Kurds for a moment, and they sent for 
one of their chiefs. When the chief came he read the 
letter carefully. Then he examined our party. '- The 
Pasha here says there is an Armenian woman and her 
servants and three children, to whom immunity has 
been promised and safe conduct. That we will grant, 
although the word of a Pasha is not binding upon the 
will of the great Shiekh Zilan. But the Pasha's writ- 



222 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

ing says nothing of five young Armenian women, too 
old to be classed as children and too young to be de- 
scribed as servants. These we will take, lest the Pasha 
be imposed upon." 

They would not believe that I also was mother's 
daughter. They took me and the four girls mother 
had brought from the house of Ibrahim Agha, and 
at the same time forced mother to leave the shelter of 
the church and camp in a nearby yard. They took 
us out of the village, to where their main camp was. 

With halter ropes they tied our hands behind our 
backs and then tied us to each other by looping a rope 
through our arms. Soon Sheikh Zilan himself came 
to look at us. He seemed greatly pleased when he had 
looked into our faces. He gave some orders we could 
not understand, but which, evidently, had to do with 
our safety, and walked away. We spent the night sit- 
ting on the ground, for we were bound in such a way 
we could not lie down. The Kurds looked at us curi- 
ously as they walked around us, and often one of them 
would kick us to make us turn our faces towa r d him. 
But otherwise they did not molest us. 



CHAPTER XIII 

OLD VARTABED AND THE SHEPHERD'S CALL 

Early in the morning we were taken into the city, 
tied across horses which were led just behind the group 
of chiefs who followed Sheikh Zilan, himself. Inside 
the city four horsemen led our horses into one of the 
low quarters of the city. Here we were given into 
the keeping of a cruel looking Kurd, whom I was soon 
to know was Bekran Agha, the notorious slave dealer 
of Moush. 

Ten thousand Armenian girls, delicate, refined 
daughters of Christian homes, college girls, young 
school teachers, daughters of the rich and the poor, 
have experienced the terror of the same feeling that 
came over me that day when I realized that I was a 
captive in the house of this notorious slave dealer. 
His slave market had been boldly operated, in the 
security of his house, for many years, but never had 
he enjoyed such a profitable trade as when the Arme- 
nian girls were available to him. 

Bekran left us in his donkey stable at night. In the 
morning his hammal came in to feed the animals. 
When he had finished this task he ordered us to fol- 
low him. 

223 



224 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

Bekran awaited us in his selamlik. I shuddered 
when I saw him — he was so old and withered and 
cruel looking. A negress waited upon him. He sat 
on the floor in the old fashion. The selamlik was bar- 
ren and ill-kept. Everywhere there was dirt. Be- 
kran's flowing garments, once of rich texture, were 
ragged and frayed. Yet I knew Bekran must be very 
rich — from the profits the helplessness of Armenians 
had brought him.. 

We fell upon our knees before him — then we bent 
into the posture of the Mohammedans — we wanted 
so much to make him listen to our pleading. I had 
suffered so much, I thought surely I could persuade 
this old man to let me go to my mother again. But 
Bekran did not even speak. His eyes roved over us 
— I could feel them. He signed to the hammal and 
the man lifted us to our feet, one by one, that his mas- 
ter might see our height, our size and judge of our 
attractiveness. Then he gave another sign and we 
were taken across the inside court, through a stone 
doorway, and into a large room where there were a 
number of other Armenian girls, with here and there 
a Circassian or a Russian from the Caucasus, among 
them. 

Soon the hammal came into the room with figs and 
bread. I could not eat, neither could any of the four 
girls who had been of my mother's party from Ourf a. 
Few of the others ate, either — as all had come but 



OLD VARTABED AND THE SHEPHERD'S CALL 225 

recently into the hands of Bekran and were too down- 
cast. When the hammal saw that we, who were late 
comers, did not eat, he said, " That is well. We will 
lose no time at the bath." He then compelled us to 
cleanse ourselves as well as we could of the marks of 
our nights in the sand and in the donkey stable with 
water from a fountain in the courtyard. 

Two men servants who came into the court while we 
were bathing joined the hammal. Together they made 
us stand in a long line. The girls who had been in the 
house when we arrived, saved us from the whips the 
hammal and his men carried by telling us what to do. 

We were taken into a large room at the back of the 
house, barren of any furniture, save a pile of cushions 
on a rug in one corner. We were allowed to sit on 
the floor any place in the room, but in this corner 
where the cushions were. Before long Bekran Agha 
came in and sat on the cushions. 

All morning purchasers came. As each one spoke 
to Bekran the porter would clap his hands and we 
were made to gather in a circle around the customer. 
Many girls were sold — but for only a few pennies 
apiece. There were too many in the market to demand 
large prices ! When a girl was sold she remained 
until a servant came to take her away. 

Late in the afternoon of the second day a customer 
to whom Bekran Agha paid great deference, entered 
the room. He was a servant, but from his clothes I 



226 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

knew him to be the servant of a rich man. From 
those of us who were left he selected three — and I 
was one of the three. While we stood near he bar- 
gained with Bekran. At last the terms were agreed 
upon. I was bought for one medjidieh — 85 cents! 

Outside was an araba. The other two girls and I 
were placed in this. We were taken outside the city, 
to a country house occupied by Djevdet Bey, Vali of 
Van, then commander of the Turkish army operating 
against the Russians. 

We were taken at once to the haremlik, where there 
were a number of other young Armenian women. 
Before evening the kalfa, or head servant, came in to 
us and we were asked, one by one, if we were willing 
to become Mohammedans. The kalfa explained that 
only those could remain in the care and keeping of 
Djevdet Bey, the mighty man, and have the honor of 
his protection, who willingly adopted the creed of 
Islam. 

Though he was cruel and, as his deeds show, the 
most unscrupulous of all the Turks, Djevdet Bey 
desired, it was made plain to us, to keep within the 
provisions of the fetva issued by Abdul Hamid and 
still in effect, which pretends to prohibit the enslaving 
of Armenian and other Christian girls unless they first 
become Mohammedans. 

I did not know what the kalfa would do with me if 
I refused to accept the creed of Islam. I feared the 



OLD VARTABED AND THE SHEPHERD'S CALL 227 

punishment would be death, or the public khan at 
once, but I could not bring myself to deny Christ, after 
having remained faithful to Him so long. I asked 
Him what I should do — and His answer came, just 
as clear and direct as when I was about to use my knife 
outside the rocks of Diyarbekir. I seemed to see Fa- 
ther Rhoupen, the priest, and I even felt his hand on 
my shoulder again, just as when he said to me, " Al- 
ways trust in God and remain faithful unto Him." I 
told the kalfa I could not forswear Jesus Christ. 

One of the other girls who had been brought to 
Djevdet Bey's house with me also refused to give up 
her religion, even to save her life. The third girl had 
suffered so much — her heart and soul were broken. 
She gave way. The kalfa put her into another room. 
In a little while we who had refused to apostasize were 
summoned, put into separate arabas, and driven away. 
What became of the other little girl I do not know. 
I was taken to the house of Ahmed Bey, one of the 
rich men of Moush. I was a present to him from 
Djevdet Bey. 

I cannot forget the depression that came over me 
when I entered the courtyard of Ahmed Bey's house. 
Twice before, since the deportations began, had I been 
taken a captive into the houses of Turks and left at 
their mercy. Yet now I felt as if the future were 
darker than ever before. Perhaps it was because the 
house of Ahmed was outside the city, in the plains — 



228 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

as a prison would be. And there were twenty-four 
other girls in the haremlik, each with her own memory 
of sufferings, more terrible even, some of them, than 
had been my own. 

Ahmed Bey, himself, was very old, yet some of these 
twenty-four girls had been sacrificed to him. The 
others had been divided between his two sons. Ahmed 
was, perhaps, a truer type of the fanatical Turk than 
any whose victim I had yet been. His interest seemed 
not to be so much in the young women themselves, as 
in the children he wanted them to bear to his sons — 
children in whom the blood of the noble Armenian 
race might be blended with that of the savage Turk, 
and who might live to perpetuate and improve the 
blood of his family. 

I was summoned before Ahmed Bey the next day. 
I had asked for clothing, but the haremlik attaches 
would not give me any, nor would they allow me to 
accept garments from other girls in the harem. " Not 
until Ahmed indicates his desires," was the answer of 
the kalfa to my pleadings. 

Ahmed Bey spoke to me gently, but it was with the 
gentleness that hurts worse than blows. " You are to 
be one of the favored of my women," he said, *' because 
you have been sent to my house by His Excellency, 
Djevdet Bey." He gave a sign, and a little slave girl 
appeared with the rich dress of a favored Turkish 
girl. " Many of these and many ornaments, as well 



OLD VARTABED AND THE SHEPHERD^ CALL 229 

as kindness and affection, shall be yours as long as you 
are obedient and respectful," Ahmed said. " First, 
you shall renounce the Christ you have been taught to 
worship and accept the forgiveness of Allah and Mo- 
hammed, his prophet." 

I told him I was weary of suffering, but that I had 
been given into the keeping of God by my mother, and 
that I would not desert Him. At this Ahmed became 
furious. All his gentleness passed away. He trem- 
bled in his anger. He upbraided me and my people 
and blasphemed my religion. I cried with shame at 
hearing him, but he had no pity. I pleaded with him 
to free me, that I might return to my mother's party, 
and I told him of the paper given my mother by Haidar 
Pasha of Ourfa. But he would not listen. 

The little slave was sent from the room to summon 
one of Ahmed's sons. The son came in almost imme- 
diately. Ahmed called him " Nazim." " This is the 
one sent me by Djevdet Bey, himself. I have set her 
aside for you, my son, because of her comeliness and 
youth. But her spirit must be broken. I have sent 
for you that you might look upon her and decide — 
what shall be done with her." 

Ahmed's son spoke to me, but I did not answer. 
Then he took my hand, drew me up before him and 
lifted my face that he might look into my eyes. 

" Leave her to me, my father, that I may try to 
persuade her to be happy in our house," Nazim said. 



23O RAVISHED ARMENIA 

The little slave led me to an apartment — a small 
room iooking out upon tne msiQe court, with a divan. 
I asked her to leave the dress with me, that I might 
at least cover myself, but she said she could not do 
that without permission. When she had left me 
Nazim crossed the court from the selamlik and came 
at once to me. 

He had the same gentleness as his father — and it 
hurt in the same way. He asked me to accept Mo- 
hammed that he might make me his " bride." He told 
me my sufferings would be very hard to bear if I re- 
fused, but that I would have many luxuries if I con- 
sented. 

I knew I could not escape. My thoughts went to 
my mother. I told Nazim that as long as my mother 
was an exile, doomed to die a wanderer, I could not 
speak of being a " bride." I told him if he would save 
her, if he would bring her to me, I would ask her if 
she thought best that I sacrifice my religion in return 
for my life and safety — and if she would say it would 
be right, then, with her always near to comfort me, I 
would let my soul die that my body and hers might live. 

" You will have to learn it is not the slave's privi- 
lege to bargain," he said, as he strode away. 

Hours went by, and I crouched on the divan — 
waiting. At every step I feared I was to be sum- 
moned again — this time for something I could only 
expect to be torture. At last a zaptieh who was one 



OLD VARTABED AND THE SHEPHERD S CALL 23I 

of Ahmed Bey's personal retainers came for me. He 
lifted me roughly and dragged me with him across the 
court and into the road in front of the house. A little 
way from the garden wall there was a group of other 
zaptiehs. 

Among them 1 saw my mother, little Hovnan and 
Mardiros and little Sarah, my brothers and sister, and 
the others of my mother's party. I had told Nazim 
where they were when I pleaded with him to restore 
them to me — and he had sent for them. 

I tried to break away, to run toward them. The 
zaptieh at my side held me. My mother was kneeling, 
with her hands lifted to heaven. Sarah ran toward 
me, her arms stretched out. " Aurora — Aurora — 
don't let them kill us ! " Sarah cried. The zaptieh 
swung the heavy handle of his whip high in the air 
and brought it down on Sarah's head so that the blow 
flung her little body far out of the path. She did not 
move again. I think the blow must have crushed in 
my little sister's head. 

Mother saw — and so did Hovnan and Mardiros. 
Mother fell to the ground, motionless. A zaptieh 
lifted her and struck her with his whip. 

I fell upon my knees before the chief of the zaptiehs. 
" Spare my mother — spare my brothers ! " I cried to 
him. " I will do anything you wish — I will belong to 
Allah — I will thank him only — if you will spare 
them!" 



232 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

" It shall be as Nazim Bey desires," the zaptieh said. 
I did not understand — I clung to him and prayed to 
him. I tried to touch my mother, but the zaptieh 
vicked me to the ground. Then, suddenly, I knew 
why they waited. Nazim Bey had come out of the 
house. When I saw him I crept to his feet and begged 
him for mercy. " I will be Turkish — I will pray to 
Allah — I will obey — just to save my mother," I cried 
to him. 

" That is well — but you shall not only be a Moslem 
but you also shall be the daughter of a Moslem — that 
will be better still " — said Nazim. " What does the 
old woman say ? " 

A zaptieh jerked mother to her feet again. He 
lifted his whip. " The creed — quick ! " he said to 
her. 

" Mother, please — God will forgive you — father 
is in heaven and he will understand ! " I cried to her. 

Mother was too weak to speak aloud, but her lips 
moved in a whisper : " God of St. Gregory, Thy will 
be done ! " 

The zaptieh's heavy whip descended. Mother sank 
to the ground. I tried to reach her, but the zaptiehs 
held me. I fought them, but they held me fast. 
Again and again the whip fell. Mardiros screamed 
and tried to save her with his weak little hands. 
Another zaptieh caught him by the arm and killed 
him with a single blow from his whip handle. When 



OLD VARTABED AND THE SHEPHERD^ CALL 233 

they flung him aside Mardiros's body fell almost at 
my feet. 

Hovnan wrapped his arms around the zaptieh who 
was beating my mother, but his strength was too fee- 
ble. The zaptieh did not even notice him until my 
mother's body relaxed and I knew she was dead. Then 
he drew his knife and plunged it into little Hovnan. 

It was only a little while — two minutes, perhaps, 
or three, that I stood there, held by the zaptieh. But 
in those short minutes all that belonged to me in this 
world was swept away — my mother, Mardiros and 
Hovnan, and Sarah. Their bodies were at my feet. 
Both mother and Hovnan died with their eyes turned 
to me, looking into mine ! My eyes see them now, 
every day and every night — every hour, almost — 
when I look out into the new world about me. I must 
keep them closed for hours at a time to shut the vision 
out. 

I heard Nazim Bey give an order to his zaptiehs. 
Some of them picked up the bodies of my dear ones 
and carried them away, I do not know where. The 
others lifted me off the ground — I could not walk — 
and carried me to the house and back to the room 
where the divan was. For two days and nights no 
one came near me but the slave girls. All that time 
I cried ; I could not keep the tears from coming. That 
was when my eyes gave way ; that is why I cannot see 
very well now without glasses. 



234 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

On the third day Nazim, accompanied by his father, 
Ahmed, came to my room. Ahmed spoke with the 
same cruel gentleness. " What is past is gone, little 
one ; it is time your thoughts should turn to the future. 
Nazim desires you. You are honored. He has pun- 
ished you for your stubbornness, and he would forgive 
you and take you to his heart. That is as it must be. 
Your people are gone. There is none to give you 
mistaken counsel. You will now accept the favor of 
Allah and enter into a state of true righteousness." 

" I want to die — kill me ! I will never listen to 
your son nor to your Allah," I said. 

They took me into another wing of the house, to 
a dungeon room, with just one iron-barred window 
looking out into the courtyard. There was no divan 
or cushions, just the floor and the walls. The window 
was high in the wall. I could not look out at anything 
but the sky — that same sky which covered so much 
of tragedy in my ravished Armenia. 

Day after day, night after night, w r ent by. Each 
day the alaiks came and brought me bread, berries and 
milk. And each day the hodja, a teacher-priest, came 
to ask me if I were ready to accept Islam. But each 
day God took me closer into His heart, for I kept 
up my courage by talking to Him. 

And then one night, after so many days had passed 
I had lost count of them, God reached in through my 
dungeon window. I was awakened by a commotion 



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OLD VARTABED AND THE SHEPHERD'S CALL 235 

in the courtyard, where, on other nights, it had been 
very quiet. Soon I understood what was happening — 
sheep were being driven in through the gate. Ahmed's 
flock was coming in from the hill pastures, driven in, 
perhaps, by military conditions. 

I heard the yard gates swing shut. Then, above the 
bleating of the excited, restless sheep, I heard the 
shepherd whistle his call to quiet them. I jumped to 
my feet, my heart throbbing. Breathlessly I listened 
for the shepherd to repeat the call. Then I was sure 
— it was the same peculiar call, sharp and shrill, which 
my father always taught his own shepherds, the call 
which he had been taught by his own father when, as 
a little boy, he learned the ways of his father's sheep 
on the great pastures of Mamuret-ul-Aziz. When I 
was very young our shepherds used to laugh at me 
when I tried to imitate them. I had been a very happy 
little girl when, one day, I succeeded so well that sud- 
denly the sheep in our flock turned away from their 
grass and came toward me. 

No other shepherds than ours or, at least, one who 
had come from Tchemesh-Gedzak, would know that 
call, I was certain. Ahmed's sheep were tired and 
nervous. The unknown shepherd remained among 
them, every now and then repeating that same whistle, 
softer and softer. I went close to the window, lifted 
my face toward the iron-barred window and repeated 
the call. Even the sheep seemed to sense something 



236 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

unusual. They were suddenly quiet. Again I whis- 
tled, this time with more courage. Instantly the shep- 
herd answered — I could almost detect his note of 
wonder. 

I had learned that by leaping as high as I could I 
could catch the window bars with my hands and lift 
myself until my face reached above the window-sill. 
Often I had caught glimpses of the yard in this way. 
But I was not strong enough to hold myself up more 
than a few seconds at a time. 

Now I tried this, hoping to catch a glimpse of the 
shepherd in the moonlight. As I pulled myself up, I 
whistled again. Many times I tried before I attracted 
his attention to the window. When I had succeeded 
and he understood that behind that window there was 
a captive who was trying to signal him, he made me 
understand by repeating his whistle three times in 
quick succession directly under the window. 

I dared not call out to him. I tore a great piece of 
cloth from the dress that had been given me. I rolled 
this into a ball and threw it out. He saw and an- 
swered by whistling softly. I hoped he would under- 
stand the torn cloth as a symbol of my imprisonment 
— and of my hope that he would save me. I could 
hardly believe that even an Armenian shepherd would 
be left alive, yet it seemed to be so. 

In the morning when the sheep were taken out the 
shepherd whistled again under my window and I knew 



OLD VARTABED AND THE SHEPHERD'S CALL 237 

he was trying to attract my attention. I answered as 
softly as I could. All that day a new hope gave me 
courage. I was sure deliverance was at hand, though 
I could not explain why. 

I did not even attempt to sleep that night. The 
sheep came in early and the shepherd whistled. An 
hour later I heard the call again — the shepherd still 
was in the yard. It must have been near midnight 
when I heard a rattling at the window bars. I looked, 
anol there, framed in the moonlight, was a face I knew 
— the face of Old Vartabed, who had come to our 
house that Easter morning with his prophecy of ill — 
the prophecy that came true. God had sent him to me 
and had made me to hear and understand that familiar, 
whistled call ! 

Old Vartabed whispered : " Who is here who 
comes from the Mamuret-ul-Aziz ? " 

" It is Aurora, the daughter of the Mardiganians of 
Tchemesh-Gedzak. You are Old Vartabed, and I am 
the Aurora you loved so much." 

Old Vartabed tried to speak, but his voice shook so 
I could not understand him. I told him all that I 
could, quickly. How I had come to be a captive of 
Ahmed and why I was in the dungeon. Tears came 
into Old Vartabed's ancient eyes when I told him how 
all my people were dead. I asked him how it was that 
he had been saved. " Old Vartabed is not worth the 
slaughter," he said. "I am of much value, since I 



238 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

have taught the sheep of Ahmed to behave only for 
me. Ahmed has forgotten I am an Armenian, since I 
bend my knees for every prayer to Allah and thus 
prolong my days." He told me to be patient. He 
would find a way to save me. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE MESSAGE OF GENERAL ANDRANIK 

Two nights went by before Old Vartabed came 
again. But each night he signaled and I answered. 
On the third night, his face was framed again in the 
window casement. 

" Be ready, little one — I shall lift you out soon," 
he whispered. He had brought a steel bar with which 
to pry aside the iron bars in the window. The bars 
were very old — perhaps for a hundred years or more 
they had served to shut in the prisoners that once 
had been confined in this same dungeon room in Ahmed 
Bey's big house. I knelt to pray, and I was on my 
knees when Vartabed whispered: 

" Come, little one — reach Old Vartabed your hand 
— he will lift you." 

The bars were bent aside. There was room for the 
shepherd to lean inward and reach down. I caught his 
hands and he lifted me until I could catch hold of 
the iron and help myself. In a moment I leaped down 
to the stump which the shepherd had brought to stand 
on, and from this to the ground. The sheep, which 
were resting all about, stirred and bleated when I fell 

239 



240 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

among them, but Old Vartabed whistled and they were 
quiet. 

" We must go quickly ; the gate is not locked. You 
must be far away, to a place I will tell you of, before 
morning comes and you are missed," Old Vartabed 
said as he hurried me across the yard. 

When we were outside the gate, Old Vartabed 
wrapped his coat around me, for it was cold. Then 
we struck out across the plains, away from the town 
and toward low hills in the distance. 

Old Vartabed did not talk much. He was so old 
he needed his strength. He was anxious that I get 
far away before dawn. When we came to the hills 
the shepherd showed me a path and told me to follow 
it, and go on alone until I came to the hut of a friendly 
Kurdish family. 

" But you, Old Vartabed — are you not coming with 
me? Will not Ahmed Bey suspect you if you re- 
turn ? " I asked. 

" Old Vartabed is too old to live in the desert, and 
then, who would care for my sheep ? " the old man 
replied. 

Poor, dear Old Vartabed! Ahmed Bey had him 
killed in the morning. 

I ran along the path the shepherd pointed out to me 
until, after many hours, I came to the hut of the 
Kurds, of whom Old Vartabed had told me. They 
were shepherd Kurds, and had great respect for Old 



THE MESSAGE OF GENERAL ANDRANIK 2\1 

Vartabed, who had told them I was the daughter of his 
one-time master in the Mamuret-ul-Aziz. They ex- 
pected me, and were very kind. 

When I thought of Old Vartabed going back to his 
sheep, and to the mercy of Ahmed Bey, I cried. The 
shepherd Kurd's wife and daughters were sorry, and 
the Kurd himself went down toward the plain in which 
Ahmed's house stood, to learn if Old Vartabed still 
tended his sheep. That night he came back in great 
distress. He had learned of Old Vartabed's fate. 
None but the shepherd could have helped me escape, 
Ahmed Bey had been sure. He had summoned Old 
Vartabed before him and the shepherd had confessed, 
as there was no other way. Ahmed Bey sent for his 
zaptiehs. Old Vartabed was led out to where his flock 
was waiting to be taken to the pasture. There was a 
shot, and he had paid with his life for his kindness to 
the little daughter of his one-time master. 

The Kurd was much alarmed for me. Ahmed Bey 
had sent zaptiehs to search in the plains and hills. 
Perhaps they would soon be at the hut. 

They would not send me away, but I knew that I 
must go. The hut was too close to the house of 
Ahmed, and the zaptiehs might come when least ex- 
pected. So they gave me woolen stockings, the best 
they had, a great loaf of winter bread, a jug in which 
to carry water, and a blanket to wrap about me at 
night. Then I went out into the hills. 



242 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

Beyond these hills was the great Dersim — the high- 
lands of grass and sand, with hills and mountains 
everywhere. For many, many miles in each direction 
no one lived but Dersim Kurds, some in little villages, 
some in roving bands. On each side of the Dersim 
lived the Turks. Once Armenians lived in the cities 
of the Turks, but now the Armenians all were gone — 
only Turks were left. 

The inhabitants of the Dersim deserts and wastes 
are not the vicious type of Kurds who live in the south 
in the regions to which we had been deported from 
our homes. The Kurds in the south are nomadic 
tribes, harsh and cruel. The Dersim Kurds mostly 
are farmers, and often rebel against their Turkish 
overlords. They are fanatical Moslems, and have 
their racial hatred of all " unbelievers," as they look 
upon Christians. But they do not have the lust of 
killing human beings common with the tribes of the 
south. To this I owe my life. 

For more than a year I was a captive or a wanderer 
in the Dersim. For many days after I left my friends 
at the news of Old Vartabed's fate I hid in the day- 
time and traveled at night, walking, walking, always 
walking; somewhere, and yet nowhere. When a set- 
tlement loomed up before me I turned the other way, 
trudging aimlessly across the wide plains, through the 
hills or over deserts. 

My bread soon gave out, and water was hard to get, 



THE MESSAGE OF GENERAL ANDRANIK 243 

for wherever there was a well or a spring a settlement 
of Kurds was close. Near one well I hid throughout 
one whole day, waiting my chance to slip up unob- 
served and cool my parched throat. There was no 
opportunity in the daylight, and when night came and 
I gathered courage to creep near to the well the dogs 
from the houses ran out and barked at me. I was too 
exhausted to run when the villagers came out to see 
what had aroused the dogs. They took me into the 
settlement and shut me up in a cave for the night. In 
the morning the chief of the settlement took me as his 
slave and commanded me to obey the orders of his 
family. 

They made me do the work a man would do. I 
tended the stock, carried the water and worked in the 
fields. When I did not do enough work the Kurds 
would beat me with their long, thick sticks and refuse 
me food. When I did enough work to please them the 
women would throw me a piece of bread. At night I 
slept on the ground, outside the huts, with rags and 
torn blankets to keep out the cold, but never was I 
warm. 

After weeks passed I was too weak to work any 
longer. I fell down when I went to the fields, and 
could not get up when a Kurd kicked me. So they 
gave me half a loaf of bread and told me to go away. 
I went a little way and then rested for two days. It 
was so nice not to have to drag a plow made of sticks 



244 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

from morning to night, I soon got my strength back. 
And then I started to walk again. 

Beyond Erzerum I knew there were Russians — 
friends of the Armenians. I tried to keep my face 
turned to where I thought Erzerum would be — a hun- 
dred miles or more through the Dersim. I kept away 
from the villages until I could walk no more for want 
of food or water. Then I would give myself up to be 
a work slave again. Each time the Kurds kept me 
until my strength gave way. Then they gave me the 
half loaf of bread and let me go away. 

Although it was very cold now, I had no clothes. 
The Kurds would never let me have any of the cloth 
they spun. Snow in the crevices among the hills gave 
me water, but all I had to eat for weeks, even months, 
at a time was the bark from small trees, weeds that 
grow in the winter time, and the dead blades of grass 
I found under the snow. 

The snow had melted when I reached the edge of 
the Dersim to the west. I do not know what month 
it was, as I had lost all track of time, but I knew 
spring was passing because the snow disappeared. I 
was now in the neighborhood of Turkish cities. Occa- 
sionally I saw Turks, in their white coats, walking 
over the plains. I saw flocks of sheep now and then, 
and other signs that I was near cities. Yet I knew 
I must keep away from these cities or their inhabitants. 

One day from the side of a hill where I was hiding, 



THE MESSAGE OF GENERAL ANDRANIK 245 

almost too weak from hunger to walk, I saw a great 
line of people with donkeys and carts and arabas, 
passing on what seemed to be a road to the south. 
As far as I could see, this cavalcade stretched out. 
For hours it wound its way across the plains. I won- 
dered what it meant. I crept down from the hill and, 
crawling on the ground, drew as near as I could. I 
saw the people were Turks, and that they were carry- 
ing household goods with them. I saw, too, that they 
were excited and seemed to be unhappy. 

I watched the line of Turkish families go by all day. 
When it was dark I determined to go the way they 
had come from. Whatever it was that had sent the 
Turks from their homes in the cities further east, it 
could not be anything that meant ill for a girl of the 
Armenians. 

Already I had crossed the Kara River, the farthest 
branch of the Euphrates. Along the roads over which 
the Turks had passed in the daytime there were scraps 
of bread, glass jars from which fruits had been 
emptied, and other remnants of food. I gathered 
enough to give me strength for walking. 

The plains across which I made my way that night 
were those which once formed the Garden of Eden, 
according to the teachings of the priests and our Sun- 
day school books. The Kara River was one of the 
Four Rivers. Nearby were the Acampis of the Bible 
and the Chorok and the Aras, the other three. Among 



246 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

these same rocks through which I hurried along as 
fast as my strength would allow, Eve herself once had 
wandered. When I sat down at times to rest I thought 
of Eve, and wondered if she were some place Up 
Above, looking down upon me, one of the last of the 
great race of people which had been the first to accept 
the teachings of Christ and which had suffered so 
much in His name through all the centuries that have 
passed since Eve's gardens blossomed on the plains 
and slopes about me. 

The next day there were more lines of Turkish refu- 
gees. These appeared to be belated and hurried in 
great confusion. Turkish soldiers appeared among 
them, and there were many zaptiehs. Far beyond I 
saw the minarets of a city. I knew it must be Erze- 
rum. I came near to a village and saw the inhabi- 
tants rushing about from house to house in excite- 
ment. 

I was afraid to travel in the daytime. I could not 
go near one of these villages, even to beg for water, 
because I had no clothes, and would be ashamed, even 
if I dared to trust that I would not be taken captive. 
During the night I crept closer to the distant city. In 
the morning I stood at the edge of a plateau, which 
broke downward in a sheer drop to the plain. Cling- 
ing close to rocks, which hid me from the view of the 
refugees who still passed along the roads, I could look 
down into the city. 



THE MESSAGE OF GENERAL ANDRANIK 247 

I saw a great rushing about. Moving bodies of 
soldiers came and went. Refugees were streaming 
out of the city and were joined by others from villages 
all around. In the distance I could hear what I knew 
to be the firing of guns. 

The firing came closer. Now and then big guns 
spoke, shaking the ground about me. I saw explo- 
sions in the city. Houses appeared to fall each time 
the big guns sounded. Far across the city there sud- 
denly appeared clouds of dust. They drew nearer. 
Soldiers fled out of the gates of the city nearest me, 
in the wake of the civilians. 

Late in the afternoon the firing ceased. The dust 
clouds beyond the city had drawn closer. Out of them 
suddenly emerged bands of horsemen. They rode di- 
rectly toward the far gates. Companies of Turkish 
soldiers met them at the city walls. There was a 
clash. The Turks were driven back. The horsemen 
followed. There was rifle firing. Other bands of 
horsemen rode down from every direction in the east, 
in through the gates and into the city itself. 

The Russians had come! 

In an hour the city was almost quiet again. Far off 
I saw great columns of troops moving slowly. Behind 
the Cossacks the Russian army was coming. The 
Turks in the city had surrendered. 

When night fell I went down from the rocks and 
into the town. I hoped before dawn came I could find 



248 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

a garment, or a piece of shawl, which had been thrown 
away and with which I could cover myself. Terror 
of the Cossacks kept indoors the citizens who had been 
brave enough to remain in their homes. The streets 
were deserted in the outskirts, except for an occa- 
sional zaptieh stealing along, as afraid to be seen as 
I was. 

Suddenly, as I turned the corner of a narrow street, 
hugging close to the wall, hoping that this turn, or 
the next, would bring me near one of the houses I 
knew the Russians must have occupied, I saw a beau- 
tiful sight — the American flag. The rays of a search- 
light played on it. 

Lights shone from all the windows in the house 
over which the flag flew. There, I knew, would be my 
haven of safety. But not until after the dawn did I 
have the courage to go near. Then I saw the figures 
of men moving about the yard and near the doorways. 
I ran out of my hiding place and fell at the feet of 
a tall, kindly-looking man, who had just emerged from 
the house door, and who stood talking to a Russian 
officer. 

I felt the tall man stoop down and put his hand upon 
my head. All at once the sun seemed to break out of 
the gray dawn and shine down upon me. Then I fell 
asleep. When I opened my eyes again it was many 
days after, they told me. I was in a warm bed, and 
kindly people were all about me. When they spoke to 



THE MESSAGE OF GENERAL ANDRANIK 249 

me. in a strange language, I tried to ask for the tall 
man who had lifted me up from the street at the door- 
step. An interpreter came, and then, in a little while, 
the tall man came in and smiled gently, and I knew 
that everything was all right. 

This man, they told me, was a famous missionary 
physician, Dr. F. W. MacCallum, who was known for 
his kindnesses to my people throughout the Turkish 
empire. He had been compelled to leave Constantino- 
ple when the war came, but he had come into Erzerum 
with the Russians — to be among the first to give suc- 
cor to my people. The house had once been the Amer- 
ican mission. The missionaries had been compelled to 
flee, but they had returned with the Russians. 

Dr. MacCallum, who now is in New York and was 
the first good friend I found after my arrival in this 
country, bought thousands of Armenian girls out of 
slavery in those days when the Russians were pushing 
into Turkey from the Caucasus. With money supplied 
by the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian 
Relief he purchased these girls from their Turkish 
captors for $i. apiece. The Turks, knowing the Rus- 
sians would liberate these captive Christian girls if 
they found them, were glad to sell them at this price 
rather than risk losing them without collecting any- 
thing. 

General Andranik, the great Armenian leader, who 
is our national hero, came to see me. For many years 



250 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

General Andranik kept alive the courage of all Arme- 
nians. He promised them freedom and constantly en- 
dangered his life to keep up the spirits of my people. 
The Turks put a price upon his head, and he was 
hunted from one end of the empire to the other — yet 
he always escaped. He led the Armenian regiments, 
made up of Armenians who lived in Russia, in the van- 
guard of the Russian army sent against the Turks. 

When I told General Andranik how I had seen my 
own dear people killed he felt very sorry for me. He 
comforted and cheered me, and called me his * little 
girl." I would rather he said that to me than give me 
all the riches in the world. 

A Russian officer who could speak Armenian also 
came to talk with me. When I had told him every- 
thing he left, but in an hour he returned. This time 
a very distinguished looking officer, very tall, with a 
kind face, came with him. I knew he must be of very 
high rank, for there was much excitement when he 
entered the house. The officer who had talked with 
me first repeated to the other many of the things I had 
told him. The distinguished looking officer then spoke 
to me, first in Russian, and then in French, which I 
understood. 

" You have been a very unhappy girl," he said, " and 
I am very happy to have arrived in time to save you. 
We shall take good care of you, and all Russians will 
be your friends." 



THE MESSAGE OF GENERAL ANDRANIK 25 1 

When he had gone they told me who he was — the 
Grand Duke, in command of the armies in the Cau- 
casus. The officer who had visited me first was Gen- 
eral Trokin, the Grand Duke's chief of staff. 

When I was well and strong, General Andranik al- 
lowed me to help care for hundreds of Armenian chil- 
dren who had been found in the hands of the Turks 
and Armenian refugees who had succeeded in hiding 
in the hills and mountains and who now crept in to 
ask protection of the Russians. I helped, too, to com- 
fort the girls who had been bought out of the harems. 

When General Andranik moved on with the advanc- 
ing Russians the Grand Duke ordered that I be es- 
corted safely to Sari Kamish, where the railroad be- 
gins, and sent from there to Tiflis, the capital of the 
Russian Caucasus. When General Andranik bade me 
good-by he said : 

" The Grand Duke has indorsed arrangements for 
you to be sent to America, where our poor Armenians 
have many friends. When you reach that beloved land 
tell its people that Armenia is prostrate, torn and 
bleeding, but that it will rise again — if America will 
only help us — send food for the starving, and money 
to take them back to their homes when the war is 
over." 

As I started away with the escort, toward Sari Ka- 
mish, General Andranik took from his finger a beauti- 
ful ring, which, he said, had been his father's and his 



252 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

grandfather's, and put it on my finger. It is the ring 
I wear now — all that is left to me of my country. 

From Sari Kamish the Grand Duke's soldiers sent 
me to Tiflis. There I was received by representatives 
of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian 
Relief, and supplied with funds sufficient to take me, 
with the Grand Duke's passport, to Petrograd, Sweden 
and America. 

But when I reached Petrograd all was not well 
within the city. Already the Czar had been removed 
and the government of Minister Kerensky was losing 
control of the populace. Rioting in the streets had 
begun, and the authorities to whom the Grand Duke 
and the American representatives at Tiflis had sent 
me had been removed or executed. 

Again I was friendless and without shelter. I had 
a great deal of money, but I could buy hardly any 
food. For fifty rubles I could purchase only a loaf 
of bread. When I became so hungry I stopped kind 
looking persons in the street to ask them if they could 
help me obtain something to eat, they would look at 
me sorrowfully, offer me handsful of paper money, 
and say they could give me that, but not food. Every 
one seemed to have a great deal of money, but things 
to eat were very scarce. 

No one dared take me in. I found an Armenian 
church, empty now and deserted. All the Armenians 
who had lived in Petrograd had been frightened away. 



THE MESSAGE OF GENERAL ANDRANIK 253 

They had been the first, because of their experiences 
in their own country, to scent the coming of trouble, 
and had disappeared. I remained in the deserted 
church for many days, afraid to go out in the streets, 
where there was much killing and robbery. Only in 
the early morning, when the streets were more quiet, 
would I venture to look for food. 

At last I saw an American passing the church. I 
ran out and begged him, in French, to help me. I 
showed him my passport and he took me in a droschky 
to the American Embassy. Here every one was kind 
to me. My passports were changed and the next day 
I was started toward Christiania. 

The train on which I traveled was stopped many 
times by bands of soldiers, who demanded the pass- 
ports of every one. Although they took several per- 
sons from the train at one stop, my passport was 
honored and I went on. The farther we went from 
Petrograd the quieter the country became. Then we 
left all trouble behind and the train speeded on in what 
seemed a peaceful and happy land. 

At last we reached Christiania and there I found 
kind friends. They gave me the first really satisfying 
food I had had in many days. In addition they gave 
me kindness and the quiet of their home. While 
awaiting word from the United States, I rested and 
won back some measure of my strength. 

More funds reached me at Christiania, and I soon 



254 RAVISHED ARMENIA 

found myself aboard an ocean liner bound for Hali- 
fax, on my way to the land of freedom. From Hali- 
fax I came direct to New York. As the Statue of 
Liberty was pointed out to me as we entered the har- 
bor, I rejoiced not merely because I, myself, was safe 
at last, but because I had at last reached the country 
where I was to deliver the message that would bring 
help to my suffering people. 

Here I found good friends — kindly Americans 
who have made me as happy as ever I can be. And, 
best of all, they are not being kind merely to one 
unfortunate girl — they are sending help to those I 
left behind — to those who are still alive and lost in 
the sandy deserts. They have made it possible for 
me to tell in this, my book, what General Andranik 
said to me: 

" Armenia is trusting to her friends — the people of 
the United States." 



THE END 



SUBSCRIBER'S PLEDGE FOR 

ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF 

400,000 ORPHANS ARE STARVING 
4 MILLION PEOPLE ARE DESTITUTE 



M ... 
Street 



City 

Date State 

To provide food for the starving Armenians, Syrians 
and Greeks in western Asia, I will give EACH MONTH 
the amount indicated by my (X) mark, so long as the need 
lasts or until canceled by me. 





$ 


-- - - 




$ per month ( 


[ orphans) 




$1000 per month < 


[200 orphans) 




$ 500 per month < 


joo orphans) 




$ 250 per month ( 


[ 50 orphans) 




$ 100 per month < 


[ 20 orphans) 




$ 50 per month I 


[ 10 orphans) 




$ 25 per month < 


5 orphans) 




$ id per month 1 


( 2 orphans) 




$ s per month ( 


[ 1 orphan ) 




$ per month 



I herewith pay $ on the above pledge 

Make checks or money orders payable to 

Cleveland H. Dodge, Treasurer, and mail to 

AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND 

SYRIAN RELIEF 
1 Madison Avenue New York City 



Ambassador Morgenthau's Story 

By Henry Morgenthau 

The one man in the civilized world who can tell of 
what the Near East suffered during the Great War is 
Henry Morgenthau. For Mr. Morgenthau was United 
States Ambassador in Constantinople when Germany 
was forcing Turkey to act as her tool. His narrative 
is a story of unexampled political intrigue and unbe- 
lievable absence of honor. And the authority of his 
statements is unquestioned. 

As a record of what Turkey did to wipe out Armenia 
from among the nations, Mr. Morgenthau's story not 
only verifies the facts related by Aurora Mardiganian, 
but it tells of the cold-blooded plotting of the statesmen 
who ordered the crime attempted. For Mr. Morgen- 
thau was the representative of the United States, and 
he strove in every way he could to prevent the tragedy. 
In these efforts the steps that led up to the ravishing of 
Armenia were made plain to him. 

" Ambassador Morgenthau's Story " is a revelation 
of events that preceded the breaking off of diplomatic 
relations with Turkey previous to our entrance into the 
war. It tells of events of which Aurora Mardiganian 
knew nothing. It makes clear why she and millions of 
other Armenians were made to suffer as she has told 
you in her pitiful story. 

Obtainable at any book-store or from the publishers 
Doubleday, Page & Co. 









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